Today’s question asks, “What’s your home decoration style?”
I wasn’t aware that I had one.
Apparently, some people can look around their homes and confidently say things like “modern farmhouse,” “mid-century modern,” “coastal,” or “transitional.” I’m not entirely sure what “transitional” means, but it sounds like your furniture is preparing to become something else.
My home decoration style is more practical.
Hopefully clean. Comfortable enough to sit down. And organized enough that I can find what I need when I need it.
That last one is really the dream.
I don’t walk into a room and wonder whether the colors complement each other. I wonder where I left my glasses. I don’t study the visual balance between the sofa and the wall art. I study every flat surface while asking, “Where did I put that thing I was holding thirty seconds ago?”
Some people decorate with a vision. I decorate through accumulation.
A picture goes on the wall because somebody gave it to us. A chair goes in the corner because that’s where it fit. A decorative item appears on a shelf because we liked it at the store, although neither of us can now remember where we bought it or why we believed we needed it.
Eventually, enough objects gather in one room that it develops what experts might call a “look.”
Our look is called We Live Here.
I also wonder who these questions are written for. “What’s your home decoration style?” sounds like something aimed at a 30-year-old upwardly mobile woman who drinks coffee in a spotless kitchen and knows what a mood board is.
Ask a working mother with four children about her decorating style, and she may say, “Clean.”
Ask a typical man, and he may say, “We have curtains.”
Honestly, I suspect most people don’t spend much time defining their home decor. They are trying to keep laundry from establishing permanent residency on a chair. They are trying to stop the kitchen counter from becoming a distribution center for unopened mail. They are trying to find the scissors, the tape, the charger and the one screwdriver that actually fits.
That’s not a decorating style. That’s survival.
I suppose my ideal home would be warm, comfortable and uncluttered. It would have a place for everything, and everything would occasionally find its way back to that place. It would feel lived in without looking as though several people had just fled the scene.
So perhaps I do have a home decoration style after all. Let’s call it Functional Hopefulness.
Hopefully it’s clean. Hopefully it’s comfortable.
And hopefully I can find my keys.
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Copyright © 2026 Doug DeBolt.
