Trusting your own style

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I sometimes feel we are bombarded with so many beautiful images of homes, that it can be hard to trust your own style. Ironic, I know, as I am the first to lap up these images on a daily basis. The images we see are all so beautiful, and so varied. There are the gorgeous character homes, complete with open plan extensions and french doors leading to a beautiful garden. There are the slightly industrialised warehouse apartments, with soaringly high ceilings and exposed brickwork. There are the minimalist homes, concrete-floored, sparsely-furnished but perhaps appealing for their sense of space and commitment to a style. All so different, but all with their own aesthetically pleasing merits.

So, where does that leave you when it comes to your own style? Of course it's fluid, it changes (thank goodness) over time. But you have to be brave when you are bombarded with so many magnificent images. I was looking around my home while eating breakfast yesterday, and wondering if the cheep-and-cheerful print of my favourite Robert Doisneau image, which was given to me nearly twenty years ago (in a frame typical of its era) should go? Or the Venetian mask that hangs in my living room (hey... it works ok), or the countless jugs picked up over the years in op shops.

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When I look around my home, there is such a mish-mash of things, that I have to fall back on William Morris's quote. We've all heard it countless times. "Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful." All the things that don't quite fit a style in my home are there, because, I believe them to be beautiful or useful. I'd like to add to this quote though ("How arrogant", I hear you shout, "Adding to William Morris's quote indeed!") The things in your home should tell a story. They should speak of the journey that brought you to this point in time. The things that I was questioning over breakfast yesterday all contribute to our family's story. The Robert Doisneau print, seemingly cheap looking now, was not twenty years ago, and six good-but-broke student friends chipped in to buy it for me. The mask was picked up in Venice when we ventured to Europe for the first time with our children, trecking from town to town with far too much luggage in tow. The green Denby jug and sugar bowl were, surprisingly, picked up in an op shop in a small coastal town in New Zealand (where my husband and I lived for a year, pre-children). Surprising because it was a perfect match to one I'd picked up in Australia about two years before.

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I'm sure I can hear you gasping in horror at the tragic home-decor scene I've just described. But, for some reason, it seems to work. I guess all of these things are linked by their stories (if not by aesthetics), and I think that may just be what makes a home.

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