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What is Your Interior Design Style?
by Lori Gilder
Did you know that each of us has a unique interior design style? And that particular style directly reflects our personalities.
Knowing your unique style before you begin your home renovation, addition or decorating project is all it takes to save you valuable time, money and stress down the road. Arming yourself with this knowledge will provide every inch of your home with an underlying sense of cohesiveness.
Where do you feel most at home?
Country Casual:
Your casual, relaxed and friendly personality is reflected in the warm and comfortable lived in look that you’ve created in your family home. Whether your particular style of country is French, English or American rustic, you have a true connection to nature and the outside world. You are drawn to all things natural, both in color and texture that embodies the overall philosophy of country living.
You may find a variety of fabrics, leathers and hides intermixed throughout your home which look fantastic against bold splashes of color. The fabrics you love range from brightly colored floral prints, stripes and plaids and are often combined with various leathers.
Traditional Elegance Decorating Style:
Your home exudes both tranquility and elegance all the while taking great pride in the understated look that you’ve pulled together. Your furnishings brandish classic lines and restrained details, while complementing the glossy white architectural trims and moldings throughout your home.
You favor symmetry and balance, from your placement of furniture to the pairs of accessories you display. Your love of subtle fabrics, textures and accessories create the overall warmth of your home and invite everyone in.
You are drawn to the bold historic color tones such as caramel browns, golds, auburn reds, and creams.
Eclectic Style:
Your risk taking personality speaks loud and clear in your spirited design style. You just love mixing furniture and details from multiple sources, creating globally inspired spaces. Your inspiration is gathered from different design periods, but your planning is deliberate, as shared themes tend to tie all the elements together. There’s a method to your madness as these elements somehow relate to each other either in pattern, texture, shape or color.
You may have collected some of your most precious pieces and accessories while on exotic vacations from around the world, or just visiting your local flea markets and antique shops. Your favorite colors white, cream, brown, taupe and black are quite neutral and act as an ideal backdrop to showcase some of your favorite rough fabrics and bold textiles and worn surfaces.
Contemporary Cool Design Style:
Your design style is nothing short of sleek and chic. You enjoy the subtle sophistication and uncluttered atmosphere that is now your signature style. Your overall space is the highlight rather than objects and things. The unadorned architectural details such as high ceilings, vast windows, exposed air ducts or the natural brick of the building is the primary focus of your home. You adore the open spaces and the linear simplicity in all design. In your world less is more and this is why you like to keep clutter to a minimum.
When it comes to dressing your sleek suite, your wall colors remain neutral and act as the perfect back- drop, which offsets your simple yet elegant furniture and bold geometric accessories. You love texture such as tile and stone, and are partial to natural fibers such as cotton, wool, linen, and silk. All of these elements complement the dark rich woods you’ll find scattered throughout your home.
Transitional Chic:
Your design style combines a little traditional with a contemporary flair. The union of these two styles creates a classic and timeless design. The focus here is on comfort and practicality while at the same time combining both a masculine and feminine vibe. The blending of curves and straight lines in your furniture creates a great sense of balance.
You love texture and are partial to leathers, ultra-suede’s and nubby chenille’s –anything soft to the touch. A monochromatic color scheme is often punched up with the introduction of warm browns and chocolate wood tones. You tend to keep accessories to a minimum yet love to display your photos and artwork framed in silver or nickel finishes for that crisp clean look.
A Little About Lori:
After graduating from the University of Manitoba with a degree in Interior Design from the Faculty of Architecture, Lori immediately began designing homes for a custom home builder, and continued designing high-end residential projects while working for other architectural interior design firms.
Lori grew up in Winnipeg, Canada, and moved to Toronto in 1990. Always intrigued by California, and tired of the freezing cold Canadian winters, she made her way west and landed in Los Angeles in 1993. Wanting to break into the film industry, she served as an art director and production designer on several commercials and low budget movies. Wanting to create a more normal life after meeting her husband, she launched Interior Makeovers in 1996, a full service interior design firm specializing in high-end residential remodels.
She has been featured on several HGTV shows over the years, from Designers Challenge to Designing for the Sexes, and more recently was awarded first place in the 2008 ASID/LA Excellence in Design Competition, which was published in California Homes Magazine. She has designed a multitude of projects throughout the US, Canada and Mexico.
Lori lives in Los Angeles with her husband of 13 years, her two children and their Tibetan terrier Rockie.
