Red, that's so true about certain names creating certain expectations--expectations which are often not met when dull reality collides with the false, romanticized images that the marketing department has imprinted in our brains.

Here's a photo (ignore the modern fans) of a perfectly nice--almost too-polite--parlor in a historic house that belonged to a famous writer who had spent some time in Paris. Let's see...pale walls, Victorian settee, crystal lamps, porcelain sculpture, pastel rug, paintings in gold frames, a dainty chandelier. Is it Collette's house? Simone de Beauvoir's? Janet Malcolm's, perhaps? Isak Dineson's? Come up with a name before you scroll down....

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Can you say Ernest Hemingway?
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So much for decorating "Hemingway Style."

Magnaverde.

When Ernest Heminway style is mentioned, I always picture Ernest being on vacation -- not sitting in his parlor! Boy, I didn't know he was so stuffy! LOL

Stuffy? Literally? Obviously he was warm-natured. ;-)

auntjen, you're so funny! LOL

First of all, I'm going to have to call my style "bungalowhouse" because she also described my style to a T (except for the careless scatterings of Barbies, My Little Ponies, etc.) But for practical purposes, it is probably easier if I tell people "Eclectic vintage/antique" or "1940s grandma's house", both which describe my look pretty well.

Second, I think a lot of people (including me) WANT a style they can name so that they have some idea of how to proceed - what books to read, what kind of pictures to look at. Now the style that one adores might not all mirror the actual house, but it gives one a sense of heading in a certain direction, even if "Swedish country" turns out looking more "English-country-gone-shabby."

Third, those of us with little talent (or at least, little confidence) actually LIKE rules. A rule! Something to guide me a little bit so I don't end up spending three weeks making curtains I hate! So I don't paint the living room a color that clashes with every object I own! Rules are okay with me!

Fourth, (and finally, I think) when someone asks "what kind of light fixture should I get?" the usual response is, "what is your style?" or "what kind of look are you going for?" So if the poster tells us in the beginning that their style is "grown up hippie" we might start thinking, maybe a Tiffany style chandelier.

The style name doesn't have to be a dead-end, but it can be a useful tool when trying to communicate to a vast audience who has never been inside your home.

Hemingway?

Wow.

I haven't got a clue. But with a red velvet antique couch I'm just hoping my style isn't "Early Whore Decor." :o

I'd say my style is Traditonal Eclectic. I'm drawn to traditional pieces but there is no particular style. I've always loved BC and would love to incorporate some of that but I'll never limit myself because being a purist just doesn't appeal to me.

On the other hand I have a friend who just loves Colonial and has decorated her saltbox style home is almost perfect period American Colonial. Nothing wrong with that either! Do it however makes you happy.

Lol, postum. Did I forget to mention the dining/play room? Except we don't have Barbies and My Little Ponies, we have vehicles and building toys everywhere. There is an interesting nytimes.com article today about decorating and how kids put a crimp in it.

Part of the fun of participating in this forum has been discovering people's different decorating styles. I have always lived in the NorthEast and I realize there is a certain imprinting that comes from living for decades in an area steeped in a regional style.

I've only had the opportunity for travel in recent years and just marvel at how right certain things feels depending on their setting. I flinch when I see a stucco-faced house with clay shingles in a NH mill town, but it looks perfect in Florida. It was odd to see a clapboard center chimney New Englander when visiting my son in Santa Barbara.

So, I realize my style has in large part been determined by where I have lived. I love beadboard, fieldstone, granite, cedar shingles, soapstone, wide plank floors, grilled windows with white trim. I like crisp contrasts, true colors and few embellishments.

This has been discussed in other threads, but I can't help but note how closely my house style mirrors the way I dress. Okay, I know you're picturing me covered in cedar shakes with plank floor clown shoes....But it's more like dark blue jeans, a true red ribbed turtleneck and a black/white wool houndstooth wool coat.

I remember watching my mother dress for work when I was a little girl. She was a nurse, and back then they wore crisp white dresses - elbow length sleeves, just-below-knee length. Her hose and shoes were immaculate, and her nurse's cap was starched and embellished with a single stripe of black velvet (it denoted what nursing school they'd graduated from..)She wore little makeup save for a touch of rosy lipstick. She had a beautiful navy wool cape, lined in red satin and when she flung it over her shoulders to walk to work, I thought she looked perfectly beautiful.

It never crossed my mind until trying to express my style that this probably encompasses everything that defines the look I keep wanting to duplicate. My eye loves the crisp clean lines of the white, the touch of color in the lipstick and lining, the lush feel and depth of color in the wool cape and the mark of individuality in that black velvet stripe.

amck, your comments make me think about something I've heard many times -- that our wardrobe can be a huge indicator of the things we like in decorating. And, in many cases, I think that's right. I've never really thought about it, but I wear black a lot, usually with a pop of color, like peridot, fuschia, red, etc. I always favor brighter colors over those that are muted. Same way with the colors I like in decorating -- red walls, black and white backsplash, zebra print, and the contrast of dark and light. I think it was Christopher Lowell who said that if we can coordinate our wardrobe, we can decorate our homes. I feel as if I've discovered something about myself. No wonder I'm drawn to a classic color sceheme of black, white and red. I love to wear those colors too.

Once my new house is finished I'll let y'all tell me what my style is. I do like old, new, cottage, antiques. Don't know if there is a name for my style, but comfortable and easy on the eyes comes to mind.

What's in a name anyway? People are going to invision different things when you say for example, modern. Thomas Jefferson probably thought his dumbwaiter on the side of his fireplace was "modern". Who knows?

That's my kind of Modern!

Kinda neat isn't it? It's a dumbwaiter that goes down to the wine cellar.

oceanna,

LOL! "early whore decor"! you are so funny!

I like a lot of different styles and up until recently I'd have said I prefer old English/Victorian touches. BUT.. we are in the process of buying a house now that the second I pulled up in the driveway took me and literally pulled me in a whole different direction. This house is all exposed log, there are logs exposed on the ceilings, there is funky chinking making the walls look almost striped (the chinking is whitish and the logs are very dark). And now that I'm head over heals for his house, all I can dream about is rustic interiors, LOL.

OMG...I am in love w/your home! I'm from New England, and I dream about this type of home on a regular basis! Just beautiful, and you will have so much fun with the rustic decor! Congrats!

amck - don't tell me you've driven by the Spanish Mission style bungalow across from Frisbie Hospital in Rochester! It always makes me laugh because it looks SO out of place here, especially now when there're heaps of snow everywhere.

I think I backed into "my style" just by virtue of the objects that appealed to me as opposed to defining a style first and getting objects that fit into it... I'm sort of at the crossover point between the late Victorian and early Arts & Crafts periods. The (only in my imagination, of course) "backstory" seems to be the home of someone around 1910 or so who loves Granny's brass bed and Mama's Eastlake furniture, but who added in a few bits of English Arts & Crafts (especially Gothic Revival!), Mission, and the occasional Colonial Revival item as the money came along to purchase new things. The sense of passage-of-time is somehow comforting to me. "Quirkiness" (I hate the word "whimsy") is a must, I just like some very odd things! I even have a couple of "evil resin" ;-) items because they made me smile or chuckle, and for me that's important. I'm currently living in a circa 1900 vernacular that supports my stylistic leanings rather well, except for the nasty remuddlings of kitchen and bath - I'm trying to think of it as "creating a blank canvas for me" so I don't have to tear out original-but-nonfunctional. :-)

I too have to do things in baby steps as I can afford to, and I have some things that really ought to go because they don't function in this house as well as they did the last one which makes me rather unhappy, but I can't afford to replace them right now. I try to just sort of let my eye slide past those. ;-) It's not that I object to them because they don't "fit my style", they're fine in that sense, it's that they're too clunky and massive for the place where they're supposed to go (and I'm not blessed with such a large house that I have a lot of other places to put things).

I've never had the least urge toward anything in the Primitive or Louis Whatshisface or Mid-Century Modern departments - it just doesn't get the juices flowing. I suppose that actually makes things easier for me because I'm not trying to get widly disparate elements to play nicely together.

I'd do any number of horrible things for a Storybook house, though, and a hundred thousand dollars or so to do it up right to the hilt with English antiques - think of a cross between Hogwarts and Bag End. *chuckle*

I've always gotten a chuckle out of the idea of one's wardrobe reflecting one's decor. Except for the occasional donning of Renaissance garb, I can usually be found in jeans, t-shirts or plain sweaters, and clogs or low boots. I honestly couldn't give a rat's rump about fashion or fussing over clothes... just like the motherhood thing, that wiring didn't get installed at the factory. :-)

oceanna, when I was a youngster my family briefly rented a big old Queen Anne house. We joked about the bathroom being decorated in "Early Whorehouse" because of the scarlet flocked wallpaper, gaudily over-ornate brass lighting, gold-painted feet on the clawfoot tub... pretty scary!

johnmari - That is precisely the house I was referring to! Wow!

However, I think there might be a token one in every New England city. There's even one along the river heading north from Berlin, NH!

amck - my best friend lives right around the corner from that house so I see it a lot. :-) The first couple of times I saw it I outright winced, but now it makes me chuckle. It's just so bizarre. There are some lovely, less peculiar-for-the-location bungalows in this town, although they're not very common in eastern New England and with the "bungalow revival" they've gotten very expensive (at least the ones that don't need six figures in repairs). There's a little brick one down the street from me that I absolutely covet. The owners are middle-aged, so DH and I joke that about the time we're ready to give up this 1 1/2 story New Englander for a single-story house they'll be ready to move to one of the senior condos. ;-) Awful, aren't I?

I hear you about the regional influences, about how "the water we swim in" gets under our skins. One of my favorite houses-to-look-at is a (correctly proportioned) Cape with cedar shingles weathered to that distinctive silver-gray, white trim and black shutters. Bonus points for outdoor steps made of roughly cut granite blocks, six-over-six or nine-over-nine windows, and a transom of little square windowpanes over the front door. It's something I grew up seeing and rather than getting bored with it, it has such a sense of "rightness" for me.

Oceanna~Better early than late. ((roaring with laughter)) :0)

Oceanna, I dare say you make me laugh with you and at myself. I once decorated my mother's bathroom in foil and flocked wallpaper and on her return, she said in her most refined and classical way, "Oh, honey, you did a beautiful job but do you think it looks like Maggie's parlor?"

My style, some Maggie's Parlor mixed with British Colonial, a little bit French and a lot of second-hand Rose.

Like mjjones453, I'm a Primitive/Rustic country lover with a mix of vintage.

I love old pieces and I love them when they show wear...that they were used and have history. I like to find pieces and come up for new uses for them or I take new items and paint and distress to make them look old, which has helped me create my look on a budget over and over again. I love the darker colors associated with Prim style today, black, burgundy, hunter, navy, mustard. I love checks and plaids found in homespun fabrics. I like collections (I collect old kitchen utensils with the wooden handles, graters and shredders, red and white enamelware, old jars, quilts, old lanterns...) I don't like bare spaces, but I don't want it too cluttered. Our home is filled with all things we love, which makes it so warm, cozy and inviting.

No matter what your style is, you should love what you have around you, don't try to be someone else or try to keep up with the trends because you'll never be happy!

LOL @ Maggie's Parlor!

I know your home is beautiful so it's a relief that we can get away with a little whore decor as long as we doll it up and disguise it a bit. hahaha

I had a neighbor years ago who had red and silver flocked wallpaper, and a black sparkly popcorn ceiling in her basement. What do you call that?

Prairie -- yes indeed! hehe

Decorpas -- when I think about red velvet antique couches, it brings to mind sleazy saloon girls in old western movies. Doesn't it for you? I'm trying to offset that feeling with my other decor. But that's one reason I didn't have it diamond tufted. :)

When we first started building our Timber Frame I read a description of a home's decor, I wrote it down because that is exactly the look and feel that I want in our home.
"The entire house atmosphere should be rustic yet sophisticated, wide-open and cozy." I might also add welcoming.
Right now it's Beach Style, until we get the construction finished. Seriously, folding beach chairs, cooler for a coffee table and patio table and chairs....All we need is a beach umbrella, tiki torches and Pink Flamingo lights......
BETTER DAYS ARE AHEAD!!! Not that this isn't FUN???

flowerchild - When our cottage was under construction last summer, our grown kids & their significants would often join us for weekend day trips at the site. We'd clear brush, rake, hike a bit, sometimes enjoy a dip in the lake. All we had up there was food in a cooler, an old charcoal grill, folding table and chairs. Oh, there was a porta-potty....and the brook kept the beer icy cold for the guys.

Much as we looked forward to having all the amenities, I have to say that some of our best family times ever was roughing it on site during the build. Enjoy!

johnmari - My sister lived in that Rochester neighborhood for a few years..What a small world!

Oceanna...literally cannot stop laughing.

Oceanna, here's one for you to add to your collection.

Here is a link that might be useful: link

LOL Magnaverde,

Ever since visiting his former home in Key West this past December I've thought of that room in particular when the "Hemingway" style is mentioned :).

Oh, on a side note, from what they explained on the tour, his former wife thought ceiling fans were tacky and preferred antique chandeliers - hence the need for the fans because you absolutely bake in that house. No big tropical palm frond fans to be found anywhere, lol.

I'm relieved to read this thread and realize I'm not the only one in style limbo and I don't feel so bad about it :).

Nat

Brutuses, yikes! Yeah, that's the look I'm trying to avoid. That couch just screams late 1800s dance-hall saloon girls to me. I'm hoping my LR doesn't come off that way. Now, imagine how much different that would look in a deep blue, or green, or gold.

There's something about red. It's just a tricky color, I think. In some situations it can be like a neutral, going with almost any other color. But in some situations it can have "that look." We all know not to use red lightbulbs, huh? ;-)

Deep blue sounds grogeous. Just a bit OT, did you ever post a photo of your most recent fainting couch? I might have missed it when my computer died and I was awaiting its' replacement.

Was Hemingway's style manufactured based on his residence or the creation of the venues in his writing? Just wondering.

The house's exterior

Oak Park looked much different and then there is the idea of his life in Cuba where he hung out at Sloppy Joe's Bar, probably inspiration for some of his writing.

Like Faulkner, it is hard to pigeon-hole what his abode might have looked like, based on the location or time in which he lived in that particular area.

With our heroes, we often make them based on what we read what we want them to be. I can say this clearly, as I worked for the government during two very different presidential administrations, worked closely with both in the job I had and neither president was as the press depicted him, and it would be very disappointing for most to see what they are really like on a day-to-day basis, and not always like the picture painted by our lively imaginations or the media.

My style is "just using whatever I love". I especially enjoy mixing primitive painted pieces with contemporary art.

Living Room/Den

Dining Room

Based on what people tend to say say when they come over, I like to call it "Idanevah", which is the relaxed, country-fied version of "I would have never thought..., or It wouldn't have occured to me..."

Generally expressed as "I'd have never thought about putting one of those on the dining room table", or "It would have never occured to me to hang that on the wall."

Works for me. :^)

You have a beautiful house, soofriver.

Oh, that just reminded me of one of my favorite pieces at Hemingway's House in KW - When Sloppy Joe refused to pay the $1 a month rent increase he and all his bar patrons waited until midnight of the last day he was paid up for and then they all grabbed their drinks and the rest of the furnishing and moved down one block to the current Sloppy Joe's location. Out in the yard of Hemingway's House there is a big trough which it turns out is the old urinal from the original Sloppy's location which Hemingway hauled back home in the middle of the night because he'd "p*ss'd so much money down it he figured it aught to be his". In the morning he refused to remove it so his former wife had it tiled and turned a big olive urn into a fountain which flows into it. The multi toed cats use it for a cool drink.

Sorry...(I could go on and on)... but that slightly moss covered old olive urn with water slowly trickling down it into that beautifully tiled former urinal made me want one of my own. What style is that, lol?

Acorena, that is a great story. I also love the Hemingway place because it is kitty-friendly. I understand there are 60 or more kitties at any one time on the property which reminds me of growing up in the south on a large property that was once a plantation of sorts. My grandmother was the kindest of souls to any (what we call homeless people now) were called vagabonds, and every Sunday morning, at least a dozen strode off the beaten path because they knew she would have leftovers from breakfast (by intent) and would have a biscuit and a piece of bacon ready for anyone who came by.

And toward that end of the kitties, she called up all the cats at dusk to eat and counted and if one was missing, she knew it and she knew the name of the missing critter, although at times there would be near 80 hanging out but she knew them all as she did the "vagabonds."

Your grandmother sounds like she was an amazingly kind woman...not only to those two legged souls whom others might overlook, but to those with four as well.

bumping this up to say, DYImadness, it's up to your tastes and what you want to have, and it does not need a name, unless you want to name it. :)

Patricia, I agree with that - personally, I'd call my home MCM, but what that means to me versus so many others is so terribly different.

I love so many different styles, though, and there are so many I'd love to have, but what I find I can actually live with and feel comfortable in is a different story - it's this blend of things that happened in the 60's and 70's, mostly, plus traditional rustic - particular Nordic and Japanese. I like a high country feel, in some ways, oddly.

Mari, I agree about the clothes and house thing. I wear almost all black (just out of practicality and a bit out of insecurity most likely), with smatterings of khaki, brown, gray, linen, etc. My house is pretty light, warm and in parts colorful. I'd never be able to wear a pair of teal pants and a cream blouse. I'd die before I walked out of the house in that.

There is nothing black turtleneck about my house, I don't think.

Last year, around this time, there was a brilliant thread about people's styles, and it's funny - that took on a very different feeling, and seemed to have a different outcome.

Anyone remember?

I feel like this forum has grown my decorating mind - it's certainly changed the way I perceive my home, myself and decor. It's remarkable, really.

chicoryflower - regarding the last couple sentences of your post above, I was just commenting to DH yesterday about how heightened my senses have been lately in relation to my surroundings.

We were walking the dogs and I was struck by the shadows from the trees and the way the light was hitting the snowbanks. I wasn't thinking at the time that it had anything to do with this forum, but how could it not? They say, "Where you put your Time, is where you put your Heart."

I don't know how much better I've become at decorating, but I certainly have become more attuned to colors, textures,contrasts, and my sense of space since I became plugged in to this forum. It has really enriched my life.

Amck, I agree completely. When I go to others' houses, I'm not just seeing it in a 2-dimensional way... I see so much more. Not just the decor, but the love, the psychology, and subtle things...

I'm much quicker with a compliment, and an accurate and sincere one, I'll tell you what.

I love primitive.
bonnie
www.farmhousetreasures.net

Here is a link that might be useful: Primitive Decor

Anyone for green eggs & SPAM for breakfast?

What, no bran muffins?

Seriously, what a tool to dig up an elderly thread in order to advertise on it.

How funny about the clothes. I hate black clothing for the most part and would never walk out of the house in black, brown, gray, navy, beige, drab outfits. I think it's a Southern thing though. My good friend lived in Vermont for 20 years although she is originally from Georgia and lives near me now in SC. She loves to tell me how people dress up there compared to down here. Southerners wear bright colors all the time and don't think twice about it. But she felt very self concious wearing bright colors when everyone around her had neutrals on.

My pants rod in the closet is a rainbow.

WOW what a great thread! I wonder how many of us if we were starting from scratch would decorate our homes and that might be the better question. Currently I think our styles in general are partially based on years of accumulating things and change in tastes,so you just go with what you have. If you were given a clean slate you might find yourself decorating in an entirely new way.

I have never liked modern or very contempory furniture my entire life.I have always been a more traditional girl. Having said I was more traditional I have some antiques from my hubbys gm, which I would never part with and always work, simply by re-upholstering the piece. We have a huge painting the belonged to my mil which is old and I also love which had been over every dining room in our four homes. We simply reframe and change the matt etc and its like a new painting. A friend of my hubbys gave us as an engagement present a silk embroidered piece which was done by his mother and sister. Its the type you might see in an oriental restaurants.It too has always hung in the dining area, except for this house. Now we are re-doing the dining room and I think I will be able to hang my picture back up.

So I think this goes along with the saying if you love something you will make it work by re-framing or whatever.

Another example is the solid teak dr suite given too us from my mil. I would never in a million years buy something so contemporary,plus I have also never liked the look of light wood.But it is a beautiful suite and in this particular house we have a separate dr, so it works because it is separate from the rest of the house which is more traditional.

I also like an informal style as opposed to rooms done very symetrically with matching end tables lamps.As for accessories I find a light sprinkling of dust bunnies on occasion adds to the informal look...wink wink.

My style is eclectic. I love different styles but recently have liked monochromatic shabby chic modern cottage type of bedrooms like the one I created in my home. I also love traditional styles and contemporary styles. I have such a variety of tastes that I wish I had the time, money and a bigger home to create rooms that I love.

I love distressed antique white or antique black furniture. I also love dark cherry wood if there is light walls or gold walls with stainless steel appliances. I also love cream kitchens. I am not sure of my style but I know I enjoy many styles. My taste has changed so much since I used to around 14 years ago only like bright colors in rooms on comforters and accessories.