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Discuss: "Personality"
What gives a room "personality" IYO? Art, photographs, trinkets from places traveled? Can a room have all those things and still not be personal? What about rooms designed by a professional - can they have personality or are they incapable, by their very nature, of being personal and individual? What about the homes of the very wealthy - can they have personality, or does the fact that the owners can buy anything mean the contents are not special?
I ask this question because MIL and I have a mutual friend. I believe this woman's home is stunningly beautiful. It was in a D&R magazine several years ago (and that's why I won't show photos of it, instead just spaces like it). The woman will admit to friends that she has NO D&R talent. Her home is professionally done top-to-bottom.
MIL believes this other woman's home is "devoid of personality," "fake," and "contrived." That everything, down to her collection of ceramic bunnies, is "obviously" purchased and staged by the designer. I'm wondering how much of MIL's opinion is motivated by jealously and frenemy-ship with this woman.
The woman is an empty nester, so there are no piles of schoolbooks, sneakers, sports gear, etc laying around. She's not a clutter bug, either, so no stacks of last year's magazines and unopened junk mail. Does a home looking magazine-worthy mean it doesn't have personality? Does personality = the clutter of life?
So you can see what I'm talking about, here are some sample photos. In the woman's home, there are photos of her children and family in every room.
The home has two formal living rooms which feel much like these two rooms:
Her family room feels much like this:
Her dining room feels like this:
And the downstairs guest room like this:
Do these rooms count as too perfect, too "done" to have personality? Is "personality" reserved only for done-over garage sale finds? WDYT?
(I'll DD this after a while since it has IRL identifying elements in it.)
Re: Discuss: "Personality"
I have been staying at my parents house off and on for the last month. They are empty nesters, and my mom is anti clutter. Like obsessively. And most of the rooms here have plenty of personality because they have a mix of things, family mementos, things brought home from travel and things my parents have collected over a lifetime.
Somi think it is definitely possible to have both a clean, uncluttered (by excess/out of place stuff) and personality filled space. I also think that the wrong designer will create a space so perfectly coordinated it is devoid of personality
if the designer really does their job and gets to know the people for whom they are designing, the space should still reflect them and their personality. it is just the designer's interpretation of it and if the clients are happy, then their interpretation of it is very good.
i don't think that clutter brings personality, but if a space is sterile, it lacks the warmth of a home. even well placed items (magazines, pictures, items collected from vacation, etc.) bring personality--no matter who put them where (designer, home owner, etc.).
That's what I was thinking. Isn't the designer's goal to achieve a beautiful room that reflects the client's personality?
Good post, OP. I think the rooms you posted have personality. Collections are something so personal.
DH and I were talking about this the other day as we are in the process of decorating our own home. We know two couples that have built houses in recent years.
One couple built a beautiful home but for us it does not have much personality. They have some small family pictures but for the most part, every decorating item looks like a mass produced metal item that you find everywhere. The house can be a model home, honestly.
The other couple has a house that shows a lot more personality. There is a consistent theme in art and other items that reflect their interests (I won't be specific for privacy purposes) and what they love. The woman told me that while building the house, they researched southern homes and added those details to their house. From plants in the garden to the color of the front porch's soffit, is planned.
Back to our house, we really need to decorate and I know I am not talented. I am looking everywhere for inspiration. We don't have much art around but what we have, we love and it has a meaning or a story behind it. I hope someday my house "feels" as personal as the second house I described above.
I think some designers probably do a great job interviewing and consulting w/ their clients, making sure that they incorporate personal elements to the room that capture the clients' personality/hobbies/style. For ex, I think Genevieve on HGTV does a good job of this--her rooms always incorporate the needs of the clients as well as the clients' style & personality.
A room that is just designed with no intrinsic connection to the homeowners, though, is a different story. For ex, when you walk into your friends' homes, you can tell if their house "feels like them" or doesn't fit.....those rooms don't really have personality.
This, exactly.
I have seen rooms irl that were done by a designer, and did not reflect the personalities of the people who lived there, and I have seen rooms done by designers that I felt completely 'got' who the people were.
I've seen rooms done by homeowners that were devoid of personality.lol
I don't think that it has to be photos or clutter to give a room personality. I think it is more about something that makes it feel like it belongs to the people who live there, whether it is a minimalist space or one cluttered with books/ memorabilia/etc....it just needs to connect.
In my opinion, a mix of high/low and furniture and objects of different ages (new and old) add character. I think the most characterless houses are ones where you can tell that the owners bought all of the stuff in the room at one time (and possibly at one store).
Also, the architecture of the house itself has a HUGE impact. All of the rooms posted by OP have interesting architectual details -- built-ins, large non-standard windows, moldings, exposed brick, etc. I don't care how interesting your possessions and collections are, if you are putting them in a beige box kind of room, it's probably not going to do much for me.
I might be the only one that agrees with your mom a bit.
If this homeowner goes on a trip and sees a beautiful vase/painting/rug she won't buy it because she doesn't trust her own taste and her house has already been "done" by someone else. For me that means that her house may have personality, but it is not hers.
This type of thing smacks of a little "for show" to me. Which is fine if that is your thing, but I don't think you can say your house has your personality.
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I do get what you are saying, but I don't think that it is as cut and dried as that.
I know people who are truly design impaired, and even just rearranging what they already own in a way that makes more design sense, with them in mind, could make a room look/feel more like them than what they had before. They just don't have a clue how to express themselves in their decor.
There are designers who are good at seeing things that a person doesn't realize about themselves, just as some people are talented at giving people gifts that are exactly what they wanted, but hadn't thought of themselves.
But why put SO much effort into something that is not your cup of tea?
I think I'm talking directly about the style of the photos OP posted. For me, it is just so formal, has so many layers, and so much stuff. If none of it has any significance, then why is it there? For show. For a style. And I think that inherently means less personality.
My Blog - 86'n It
My Blog - 86'n It
I'm mostly a lurker here but I have to say that I think that the while the rooms you posted are lovely they are lacking personality. Meaning that they don't feel lived in they look like they were put together by a decorator.
I think that about lots of the rooms that I see whether they be on a persons blog, or pintrest. I think it was YHL that posted some pictures recently where they had a guest post photos of an entryway that they had redone. I thought the redo was horrible it was beautiful but it looked like everything else I've seen. Framing scrapbook paper or pages from a book just to have some cohesive gallery wall just isn't for me. I'd rather have a blank wall than put something up on it that doesn't speak to me I just don't understand that.
I don't like clutter either and don't think that clutter makes a house personal but I think that you can tell the difference between a room that is decorated and each item is purchase to "fit" into the room and one that is decorated with items whether they be new, old, hand made or bought but that they are treasures to the person who's home they are in.
Personality - to me that means you could tell who lives there without being told or knowing ahead of time. THe "Vibe" of the house matches the personality of the person - it has a unique "flavor".
Just because someone doesn't know how to decorate, it doesn't mean that they don't like living in a beautifully decorated space or that it doesn't say something about them. Some people are thrilled to have a pretty space that they didn't have to decorate. I don't really get it, but I do know quite a few people like that.
Just because something isn't your style, it doesn't mean that it doesn't suit the person who lives there. I think it is hard to whether the space has personality or not without knowing the person to whom it belongs.
The spaces pictured are nms, but I think they do have personality. I can't say whether or not they suit the people who live in them, but they are not sterile or devoid of personality. I know quite a few people who would love to live in those spaces and they would actually suit them quite well pretty much as they are...just add their own photos and they would be happy campers.
My mom decorated her own living room. It is nms and seems a bit formal/decorated to me, but it is filled with things that she loves to look at, although much of it doesn't necessarily mean anything more to her except that it was pretty. That works for her and makes her very happy. It actually is a very comfortable and welcoming room, even if it isn't decorated in a style that the rest of us have/want in our own homes.
This is my own take on it. I think the personality label gets thrown around as another word for NMS.
The woman who lives in the home is preternaturally polished (and as wealthy as Croesus) and so of course her home would look like this. My MIL is an aging hippie and her home is full of hand-me-down furniture painted turquoise, dusty poetry books, and cat hair. The two women couldn't be more different - they're in the same social circle only because they live in a teeny town. I'd say their homes reflect both of them equally well - they're just different people who naturally have different style homes.
(Oh, and yes, the photos above do reflect the architecture of this woman's home reasonably well.)
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Of course I agree with the old hippie! Haha!
Does this perhaps also say anything about how you and your MIL feel about each other?
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Ha, no, not as much as you'd think. While MIL and I are polar opposites, we get along well. We generally have great discussions of homes in Dwell and Trad Home and everything in between. It was what I perceived as her unusual lack of objectivity that made me write this post.
MIL's SIL (and my AIL) has a home that is cut from the same cloth as this other woman's. They're so similar they could have been done by the same designer - same color palette, same formulae (antique rug + 2 antique wood chairs + 2 comfy club chairs + velvet sofa + distressed coffee table + antique grandfather clock + floor to ceiling silk drapes). MIL said AIL's home had "so much more personality." I asked her to explain and our conversation went like this:
Her: Well, AIL has photos of her children all around.
Me: Um, did you not see the 9 million this lady had out?
Her: Well AIL has artwork from her children out.
Me: Did you check the bookcase in the back hall?
Her: Well AIL has those porcelain bunnies she's collected.
Me: Are you honestly trying to tell me there's a difference between mass produced porcelain bunnies and mass produced ceramic bunnies?
Reading the responses here, I think for many people, and MIL included, the personality label is reserved for styles they don't care for.
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Thinking of doing cosmetic updates to a dated home? These were our costs.
That's a pretty hilarious exchange.
I don't think I feel these houses have less personality just because they are nms though. I see plenty of huge, beautiful modern homes that are just 'meh' for the same reason. I've actually been noticing it more lately too. They are styled so much that they end up with a 'nothingness' about them.
Anyway, agree to disagree?
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