This year, we’re beginning a new building project for our family. We bought a lot in our neighborhood and are designing a house we’ll eventually move into. Stepping back into the role of “client” has been clarifying and humbling. It’s reminded me that searching for design inspiration can be, well, uninspiring. So much of what I see online looks the same.
Fashion reflects this even more clearly, perhaps because it’s more accessible than architecture. People see a look they like, buy the exact shoes, pants, and accessories, and call it personal style. But the fashion and interiors I find most compelling aren’t about replication. I’m inspired not because I want to dress exactly the same as someone, but because I admire how honestly they’re expressing themselves. And that gives me permission to do the same.
The spaces that stop me in my tracks work the same way. They don’t feel assembled. They feel considered. There is usually something I haven’t seen before, the way someone displays something, or hangs a piece of art. These spaces are unique and interesting because they have a point of view.
As we embark on our own home project, I’m also being reminded that personal style evolves. What I wanted five years ago, when we designed our current house, isn’t necessarily what I want now. That doesn’t mean the house was a mistake. It means my life has changed. My perspective has shifted. The most obvious difference is that I’m no longer a mother to one child, but to three. Our city and neighborhood continue to change. Our needs have changed.
That isn’t failure. That’s growth.
The benefit of truly living in a space is learning what works and what no longer does. These aren’t criticism. They’re observations. In this current season of life, marked by the constant hum of family chaos, what I crave most is simplicity. Fewer decisions. Fewer materials. Fewer things demanding my attention. I’m drawn to restraint.
I see my clients wrestling with the same tension. Pinterest and Instagram can be entertaining and even useful, but translating inspiration into something meaningful requires focus. To develop a clear point of view, I always return to three things:
1. Place
2. Lifestyle
3. Desire
What I’m learning from designing for clients, and now again for myself, is that personal style emerges through constraints, not endless options. The more you narrow your choices based on reality—your climate, your neighborhood’s history, how you actually live, your budget, your maintenance tolerance—the clearer your style becomes. It isn’t about choosing from infinite possibilities. It’s about eliminating what doesn’t make sense until what does becomes obvious.
This is where personal style reveals itself, not through aspirational images, but through lived experience. It’s about responding to reality. A house in a 1920s historic neighborhood shouldn’t look like a house in the desert. A kitchen for someone who cooks every night shouldn’t function like one for reheating takeout. Personal style depends on specificity. Trends erase it.
Personal style is also developed slowly - piece by piece, object by object. Through noticing what we gravitate toward and what we avoid. What calms us versus what overstimulates us. Through understanding the gap between the life we imagine and the life we’re actually living. Over time, patterns emerge. These aren’t rules you’re following. They’re truths you’re discovering. There’s no shortcut to that clarity.
Developing personal style also requires mistakes. You will buy things that turn out to be wrong. You have to live with choices long enough to know whether they work. You have to trust your instincts even when they contradict what’s trending. That’s uncomfortable. Following a prescribed aesthetic is easier. At least then you know you’re doing it “right.” But right according to whom?
This is what I want to explore this year. Not how to achieve a specific look, but how to develop your own eye. How to recognize what you truly love versus what you think you should love. How to make choices that respond to your real life, not an aspirational one.
I’ll share what I’m noticing, learning, and reconsidering as we work through our new project and reflect on what our current home has taught me. Not because you should see things the way I do, but because watching someone think through their choices may help you think through your own.
Personal style isn’t a destination. It isn’t a finished room, perfectly photographed and posted. It isn’t something you “finish” with one project. It’s a practice. It’s the ongoing work of looking, choosing, living with, adjusting, and looking again. It’s slow. It’s personal. And it will never look like your Instagram feed.
That’s how you’ll know it’s working.
— Carly