Saturday, January 15, 2011

Unify your Home...Decor Integration Tips, Exploring destination themes for the "Ours" brand - Part 1

Last week, I began exploring a dilemma many of us face in designing our interior spaces and decided to start this series, when “Yours” and “Theirs” becomes “Ours”. If you missed the first post, take a moment to read it here. This week I am going to walk you through an activity you can do as a couple to get the creative juices going and develop some unifying “Ours” themes for the home.

Before you start sorting your furniture to goodwill or garage sale status pile and waaaay before you start getting out those paint brushes...pause a minute and explore what you have in common as a couple. Sit down and reminisce about your experiences together. The whole point of this exercise is to gain some insights as to become inspired by how a couple’s personalities and different tastes (the “Yours” and “Theirs”) can translate into a brand of “Ours”.

You as a couple are two sides of the same coin, your strengths and weaknesses together complement each other…otherwise you would be together. This same insight on what makes your relationship work is transferable into some very cohesive interior design inspiration. I highly recommend incorporating this exercise into your “date night” activities.

Yes, interior design planning can be fun and romantic! 

One of the suggestions I have for finding inspiration to develop a unique “Ours” brand to incorporate into your home is to take cues from your favorite travel destinations, dining experiences, and hobbies you share together. During these conversations explore what you liked best about these experiences, how both of you felt, what each of you saw. Overall were your experiences together exciting, relaxing, romantic, daring, or even competitive…While reminiscing think about the colors you remember seeing, the types of foods you ate and how they tasted. Were they spicy and vibrant...perhaps you had comfort foods...or maybe they were even a bit nutty, like trail mix?

The end goal to these explorations is to come up with a descriptive list of who you are as a couple. Write some key words from your conversational explorations down. I have provided a few examples from mine and my husband’s “Ours” list to get you started. 
  • Caribbean vacation, walking on the beach, romantic fires, pineapple and mangoes for breakfast, seafood for dinner, amazing sunsets of red, orange, and purple, the sea glass green of the sea, cool lotion on sunburns, feeling completely in love…
  • Visiting our favorite pub, billards and darts, chess games near the fireplace, ice cold beer, awesome chili cheese fries, live music, dark colors like kelly green and maroon, cozy competitive and excited…
  • Weekend Biking trips, early morning start, coffee…coffee…coffee…being one with nature, trail mix for energy, sunlight flashing off the chrome handles of our bikes, moving at breeze speed, the bouquet of flowers picked, feeling energized, alive and in nature…
Don’t analyze this list yet, it shouldn’t matter right now if some of the descriptions are at odds with other descriptions. No worries, I will guide you through the next steps…in the meantime, leave a comment and let me know what other ideas you use for inspiration in designing your interior spaces.

2 comments:

ajira @ ajira darch photography said...

This sounds like a great idea! Thanks so much. My husband and I have done a variation of this where we each describe how our dream house would look. It's so fun to get an idea of what your love pictures as ideal.

Unknown said...

You're quite welcome!
I like the idea of having each partner describe how their dream house would look like with sample pictures as a starting point for inspiration.
Great idea to get a feel of different styles e.g. midcentury modern, arts and crafts, victorian...and so on to use a basis to start injecting a personalized view on these design style staples.