How To Make a House a Home
Bring life into your curated space.
Your house is not a showroom.
Your house is not a hotel lobby or waiting room.
Your house is not a museum.
Instead, your house is...
Where the children play.
Where the dogs sleep.
Where meals get cooked and eaten and shared.
Where drinks get spilled.
Where showers are taken, and baths are needed.
Where you live.
1. Magazines, Pinterest Boards, & Instagram
They're pretty, but you only see half of the story.
It's fake, people!
As big of a sucker as I am for pretty architectural photography in the latest Apartemento or Kinfolk magazine, I often remind myself that those photos are entirely staged.
If you've seen Dakota Johnosn's viral house tour video, where the beautifully painted green cabinets and mustard-scalloped napkins took the internet by storm. My favorite follow-up Twitter thread years after its initial release highlighted that the Architectural Digest producers strategically reordered objects around the house to make it appear more nuanced. For instance, they placed a bowl of limes in her kitchen simply to color-match those famous cabinets.
"I don't even f*cking like limes."
In other words, we were slightly duped.
Staged photography is a real thing, and while this might seem inherently apparent to most of us, I remind myself this the very way I remind myself that gorgeous, envy-filled pictures of other women in magazines are also likely photoshopped.
Editorial photography digitally manipulates the broken lines to appear perfect for basic marketing purposes and financial gain.
Grabbing your attention means evoking a feeling in the observer. Feelings don't sell unless they're extreme, whether jealousy, awe, or desire.
Another example is a recent trend on TikTok, where design-forward homeowners showed their favorite corner of their house vs. the unseen rooms and crannies that don't often appear in their curated social feeds.
For example, a fireplace mantel with pretty pottery and stacked art books starkly contrast the living room entryway, where battered shoes are next to unkept cardboard boxes, dirty baseboards, and dog hair.
Because, after all — there's a difference between a house and a home.
2. Lean Into It
Honor your roots.
One of my biggest annoyances is when people don't embrace what they're given.
Listen. It's a hot take, but I firmly believe that an all-modern NYC-styled decor doesn't belong in the English countryside or vice versa. The same goes for placing faux beams in a home with an already-stabled structure or DIY-ing fake brick walls on your drywall. If something wasn't originally meant to be there, think twice before adding it to your space.
I'll use my house, for example, because it's important to lean into 1.) where you are, 2.) who you are, and 3.) the home's structural integrity.
I live in the Phoenix Valley of Arizona, where the sun shines 90% of the time and warm colors glow in abundance. My house, in particular, was built in the late '70s in a neighborhood next to a small historic downtown in a province where irrigated lots and family ranches thrived. It's structured like the typical ranch home, where the front of the house is a living room/kitchen area with a long hallway separating the main compartment from the bedrooms and bathrooms. It's positioned on the most considerable square-footage lot in the whole neighborhood, right on the corner where kids like to stop and meet each other after school for a Polar Pop (we live next to an elementary school).
Now, given the context, these are elements of the house that we like to continuously reference during our interior and exterior renovations:
Desert and Spanish-style elements (smooth stucco, arches, and dark woods such as walnut or oak).
Lots of trees, plants, and native grasses.
Patio culture, creating a friendly outdoor space for gathering and playing.
Smaller rooms mean less "stuff." Use wooden armoires as storage and keep material items to a minimum.
Warm colors, terracotta tiles, concrete floors, and black-iron accents.
As much as we adore a European-style cottage or super modular NYC-style luxury, that isn't where we are, nor does it pay homage to our roots. Optimize your space by honoring the place that came before it.
It's not "limiting"; it's a space to pay respects.
3. Embarce Personal Items
Even if in a unique way.
Guilty! I could be better at this personally, but that's only because I haven't yet found the perfect frames to display more of my personal items. I'm still working on the artwork around my home, okay?! I'm not done! I promise!
Although this concept isn't revolutionary, it actually is... your home should include personal objects.
This could mean family pictures and save-the-date invitations on the fridge. Still, it could also feature more outside-the-box displays: rocks from a road trip, postcards on the coffee table, handwritten letters in an album by the office, framed artwork from your kids, or hand-me-down items from a family member.
My favorite heirlooms are kitchen items from my Oma. She was a master in the kitchen who never turned down a strong cup of coffee or a stick of dark chocolate. One of her most memorable aspects was her keen ability to make everyday small items feel like a luxury: the stainless steel creamer for her half-and-half, the metal tea dispenser for her loose leaves, or patterned cloth napkins for tableside snacks while she'd watch her TV.
Every item she owned held a helpful purpose. Luckily, my father and aunt kept a few of her precious things that I still have with me today, including a few other beautiful items from my husband's late grandmother (including my favorite green glass fruit stand and citrus squeezer!).
4. The Art of Curation and Collecting
A fun way to spruce up your home.
Good curation begins with pleasure — the intimacy we form with unique and silly objects, such as art, ceramics, or the like.
What draws us in?
What's the thing that stops us when we're inside a store?
What colors catch your eye first?
It's way more fun to go antique shopping or repurpose hand-me-downs than to buy art or decor from IKEA or Target. Often, the art at these large-scale stores is tacky versions of pieces from smaller, independent artists. They draw the fine line between copying and mimicking, and it's a waste of cash to buy something you'll want to change out in a year anyway simply because you followed the trends.
Non-store-bought goods and decor don't feel lived-in or real — because they're not. While there's a time and a place to purchase these items from a nearby department store, I cannot stress enough the value of taking your time to seek out more unique items in your place without having to pay prices for the fakes.
Collecting objects was a favorite pastime as a child that I lost through age, but I've started to pick it back up again as I've appreciated the art of gathering goods. "Collections," in my opinion, don't have to be just one thing or category but a span across multiple.
In grade school, I gathered tons of seashells from the various beaches my family and I would travel to in a glass jar. Although I no longer have the jar, another unique way to display various smaller items is a box for nature objects and trinkets (I'm excited to do this for all of Reyce's found seeds, sticks, and dried flower buds). You often see these boxes in vintage-style nurseries, so it'll be the perfect addition to Reyna's room when she's a little older and can appreciate it.
I have also always loved vintage plates on the wall, which is a fun nod to the classic Nancy Meyers aesthetic. Still, it's also a proud way to display your family's heirlooms without getting the precious materials too dirty with food.
5. It Takes Time
Lots and lots of time.
I'll never forget how often my father drilled into my head the time it takes to make your house unique. When Reyce and I first purchased our home two years ago, he repeated: " Don't rush into it. Take your time. You won't find everything you love in a year. It'll take a while before you get to a place where you feel like it's 'finished' if it ever will."
Renovating a home will always take years (unless you fork up a ton of cash), but even decorating or re-furnishing a space deserves a solid stretch. Rushing the art of creating your space will feel rushed or like a primary hotel lobby with furniture from Home Goods.
A well-designed space shouldn't feel fussy or overdone. What a relief to know we can take our time piecing together the space we want. Although it's annoying for Type-A people like myself to live in a space where old couches from your old place are still there temporarily, or you're without a dining table & chairs because you’re searching for the perfect set, it beats wasting money on new furniture I'll hate in a year.
Trends are just that... trends.
They fall as quickly as they rise.
