Thank you Lavender!

I think the biggest issue for me is that I just don't have the "guts" to try things out, because I'm constantly doubting my own taste. I'll look at a paint color, or a piece of furniture, or even a little trinket and think that I like it, but then will start trying to figure out if it will be a good fit and in the end I just end up not buying anything out of fear of making a mistake! It's pretty ridiculous, I know. I feel that having a little bit of "education" will make it feel like less of a guessing game and let me get a little more comfortable with these things.

Another issue I face is that the interior decorating styles I like don't seem to be a good fit for our current home. I prefer fairly classic interiors in neutral colors (which is pretty much how I dress - lots and lots of taupe, dusty rose and heather gray!), and we live in a loft-style condo with exposed brick, 9 ft windows and bold oak flooring from 1852... I've tried the neutrals, and they end up looking very much washed out. I feel like our home needs a bolder approach, but if only I knew where to begin...

A lot of people are afraid. People with much more experience than you. Don't apologize, but find a space you don't need to worry about. Do you have any smaller, more private spaces? That's a great place to try something new.

What space do you want to decorate? If it's a larger, more public space....stay with neutrals on the big things (walls, sofa, carpet) and have fun with smaller areas. Find some accents you love! Pillows, throws, area rugs, prints/paintings, collectibles, dishes, etc. They're easy to change and will help you define your style.

What do you like? What shows/movies do you enjoy? Do you like certain places for vacation? Do you dream of Scotland or maybe Italy....or see yourself on a tropical beach?

Do you watch old movies? Do you like fantasy? Do you enjoy more realistic crime shows....or PBS and Downton Abbey? Think about it. And remember....you can have different styles in different rooms! Powder rooms are the best to try something outlandish. Nobody is in there very long :)

ETA: I don't like gray. Many people do (so no offense to those who love it) but for neutrals, I prefer beiges and browns. I like wood and they seem warmer to me. Gray is also the color my mom chose after her divorce (understandable) then moved on to greens, yellow and peach. Much happier! She called them her 'sherbet colors'. Somewhere in between is where she lives, now.

You like dusty rose? What color is your brick? Is it more rosy or orange-y? (Is that a word? LOL) Oak floors and brick...sounds beautiful! Heather grey has a bit of lavender in it, right? I think we're on to something. What about your likes on destinations, movies, etc? Classic is great (I like it, too) but do you have any other preferences to go with it?

The "for dummies" series actually does have a book for home decorating and there are others out there....and look at your library. Also, you may find classes through your adult Ed or rec offerings.

I agree with lavender lass, start finding your style by saving pictures. If you see a room you like try replicating it yourself. Take pictures of your rooms and figure out what they're missing, what they need. I have found this helpful. A blank wall will jump out at you or you see there are no plants or flowers or that the coffee table is bare.

One of the best things that ever happened to me for my design education was participating in the Design Around This threads on the Kitchen Forum and now the Home Decorating Forum. I don't know if you've seen them, but they are basically a game? a challenge? to create a mood board following a particular theme. You put together a room in photos and images on the computer (you can do this in Word or PowerPoint, or something fancy like Photoshop, or I use an online program called Olioboard). Doing things "virtually" basically eliminates the cost of trying something out (the only thing you've invested is your time)--if you hate the mood board version, it's probably not going to work in real life. There's a limit to it, of course, especially trying to match colors, but it helps immensely with the big picture.

I was going to also say about the brick, unless you intend on painting it, you would need to work with the color of the brick. Sounds like the condo you have has great bones. Why dont you post some pictures here and ask us for advice.....we are great!!!

Here are a few ideas. Neither one might appeal to you (and that's just fine) but it gives us a start. Is the brick color at all similar to yours?

More neutral...

More color...

LOVE, this last photo, I have a passion for reds!

Lavender, thank you once again for being so supportive and helpful!

We have a condo with an open plan kitchen and living room, separate bedroom and spare room with no windows that is currently used for storage. Even though we've been living there for almost 5 years, we pretty much have minimal furniture and no real decorations to give the space some "soul" and make it feel more personal. It's a minimalist's dream! And it's those little accents you speak of that I'm having such a hard time with.

The brick is definitely not orange, more of a dark red and reddish-brown I guess? I can tell that the brick walls could definitely use some big bold art, but between not being able to choose and on top of that having no idea of how to hang anything on brick they remain bare.

I want to start with our bedroom - the two non-brick walls are currently painted a buttercup yellow color that I really, really do not like. In the living room they are more of a light neutral beige which I very much prefer. We have two large dressers with nothing on them, nothing on the walls, no accent pillows, just your basic furniture (bed, dressers, end tables, lamps) and a yucca plant.

As for movies and style, I could watch classic 50s Hollywood all day! And yet I mostly wear jeans and running shoes. For travel destinations I prefer urban adventures (we went to Tokyo for our honeymoon last year!) to the beach.

Joanie, thank you! I think my problem with trying to replicate things I like is that I'm drawn to spaces like this:

ferguson · More Info

And yet our house looks more like this:

Bright and Industrial Loft in Boston · More Info

I think you learn by doing. You don't necessarily have to know all of the design "rules" (at least I don't think you do), but you do have to know what you like. Sounds to me like you recognize easily what you like but lack the confidence to move forward. That's totally understandable! Keep looking all around you and making note of everything that strongly appeals to you. Make notes, start a binder, keep clippings. I used to read scads of decorating magazines, but lately they seem to have evolved into sort of a one-note resource, so perhaps blogs are the more current thing. Read them often and study photos of rooms that appeal to you. Ask yourself how you could translate looks that you like into your own home. Nobody wants to make mistakes, but understand that you will. And it's ok. Or you'll create a look that you love for a season, and you'll get tired of it and long for something else. That's ok too. You obviously have a creative spark, or you wouldn't even be interested in posting here to begin with. You just have to fan that little spark into a flame, and keep at it. It's all such a process, but one that those of us who frequent this place truly enjoy. I am currently decorating my 11th home, and discovering new things about what I want to live with (and what I don't want to live with). And while I so value the opinions and input that I receive here, I've also reached the place where I don't really need the validation of others to enjoy my own style. For many of us, that takes time and comes through experience. You'll get there too. I'm sure you will.

:-)

A few more ideas. The first one has the gray wall and lots of white, but the accessories are probably wrong. Ignore them and look at the colors, if possible....

This one is just a very nice kitchen with your brick and white, with some classic details :)

This has the wrong windows, but I like the brick with light fabrics, but the wood is on the wall, instead of the floor. But, those lilies are beautiful!

Can I just say how incredibly great and helpful all of you are? I can't believe all the new replies I got while I was typing my previous response!

Cawaps, I have not seen those, but that seems to be exactly what I'm looking for! Being able to see things together and what works/doesn't would really, really help to start figuring out those basic rules... I'll have to start searching for those!

RoseAbbey, you guys are absolutely great! I'll have to find some semi-decent recent photos. Here's what our bedroom brick, floor, trim and walls look like right now. That's from when we first moved in, so the furniture has changed.

And a few more, also from when we first moved in:

(I have since bought a bigger comforter)

As far a design principles, a book I got when I bought my first home, was "Use What You Have Decorating" by Lauri Ward. It's not a particularly deep book, but the decorator redoes rooms and then explains what was wrong with the "before" arrangement and what is right with the "after" one. She also has a blog, but that one is shy on photos.

l pinkmountain thank you so much - that sounds like the kind of thing I need! And I "looked inside" on Amazon and saw a chapter on top 10 mistakes, that's definitely what I need, haha. I've already ordered a copy from my library.

This is why I'm a big fan of visualization tools:

recordaras, your place is great and indeed full of potential, and you obviously have potential to expose this potential, lol. It will happen more when you expose yourself to more and more ideas..you can and will get inspired by movies and art, nature and travel, pictures in magazines and blogs and Pinterest...but personally, my appreciation for design started from reading books, and grew from there, and that's how I started looking more around myself, and getting more inspired and(gradually) less fearful. Still fearful as hell sometimes!

Everybody's been super helpful in this thread, so I'll just add names of the books I loved the most(I'll try to get names right, but can't look up all the links right now) :

*Basics:

Maxwell Ryan, Apartment Therapy Big Book on Small, Cool Spaces (house tours, advise, nice sources in the end of the book-most books have them btw)

Domino:The Book on Decorating (nice summary on mix and match, types of furniture, examples, sources..really sort of ABC book, well composed and illustrated)

Lynnette Jennings, Straight Talk on Decorating (very good and making-sense explanations on color and light, even though I don't like her style at all..))

Clare Nolan, Making A House Your Home (great book all over)

*The most well written:

Megan Morton, Home Love (fun and warm approach, makes one feel relaxed and inspired)

The Perfectly Imperfect Home, Debora Needleman (fun to read and the best chapter on lighting. I'm bad with anything that has to do with electrical, so if I understood and even enjoyed..))

Celerie Kemble-both books she wrote by now. Probably the most poetic yet down to earth author. If you want to go deeper-I highly recommend her.

*The most inspiring styles and interiors(highly subjective of course!):

Books by Abigail Ahern, especially the second one: Decorating With Style. DYI advice if you're up to it, interiors to die for. She also has blog-not only extremely talented designer, but nice person as well.

Justina Blakeney, The New Bohemians. Great daring interiors, well composed book..has a blog as well. Great photographs, very creative.

Books by Susanne Salk-mostly interiors by different designers. Different, bold, amazing.

Remodelista-"clean" organic modern styles, examples of interiors, great sources. Have blog, quite useful one.

Mary McDonald Interiors-well, that's very high end. But she's really great with colors. So-inspirational

Kishani Perera, Vintage Remix-love her style

Lauren Liess, Habitat-appreciate her organic modern style and her writing as well

Now for blogs(I don't read all of them to the same extent, but kinda follow):

Apartment Therapy-for hundreds of real home tours and "The good question" column

Justina Blakeney, Abigail Ahern-for amazingness and inspiration

Remodelista-for house tours and resources. They're great at resourcing stuff

Lauren Liess-if you like to watch the process of someone talented designing

Maria Killiam-for explanation of colors and undertones..she's a color expert, so lots of advice on how to put colors together and why. She has strong opinions and style very different from mine..but it doesn't matter as long as I learn something interesting

Now, that was long..))))

I give The Meghan Method to those newly interested in decorating. She takes you step-by-step through the process.

Look for inspiration pieces which can then give you a direction. Look at houzz.com for rooms that you like and then make them your own. Look in decorating magazines...a lot of them now have a lot of photos on line, so plenty of places to look.

I would also recommend Christopher Lowell's 7 Layers of Design. He has a book by that name, but he also has videos available through youtube where he redoes his studio using the 7 layers. It's a nice way of organizing the design process so that things get done in the proper order.

Cawaps, thank you - that looks amazing. I actually recently bought a painting to go over the couch thinking that we could lean it on the wainscoting, but it keeps tipping over, so it looks like I'm going to have to make my husband figure out how to hang things on brick!

Aprilneverends, wow, what a list! I have taken all of those down into a notebook (in case I lose this thread) and will start working my way through. Definitely incredibly helpful!

Fun2BHere, thank you! Step by step is definitely what I need. That one was immediately available at my library, so I've placed a hold and will be picking it up in the next couple of days.

Annie, that video looks very helpful - I'll watch it as soon as I get back home from work.

Once again, a huge thank you to everyone who has offered some suggestions!

How to hang picture frames on a brick wall (Bob Vila)

That's terrific that the book is available at your library. When I was actively decorating, I used to go to Barnes & Noble, pull all the new decorating books, go to the cafe, have a coffee and check them out. Sadly, my library never ordered decorating books.

I'm actually quite surprised - they seem to have most of the books from Aprilneverends' list! A number of them will take a while since they have to be ordered via an interlibrary loan, but that definitely beats paying $20-30 per book on Amazon.

Yes, I totally recommend going to some type of book store or library and perusing the books. Important to find something that is written and organized in a way that makes sense to you, and addresses your style and your issues. Many decorating magazines, blogs and books are written for huge homes and high end products, neither of which I had. And then some of the "on a dime" stuff is, to paraphrase someone on here, "Tacky stuff remade from tacky re-purposed items." I also kept an inspiration notebook of things I liked so I could use those elements in designing my rooms, like color combos I liked and furniture arrangements I liked. There used to be an HGTV show about how to "copy" a high end look. I really liked that show, although I rarely liked even the original high end design. But it did teach me how to figure out ways to substitute lower cost items for higher end ones. Figuring out what is essential to a look. I do that with clothing outfits too.

I want to add to the "learn by doing" suggestion that we have all made mistakes. The bedroom in my last house was painted 3 times before I figured out what I liked. The realtor really liked it, and asked how I knew what to do. Trial and error.

In the new house, my powder room is a disaster. I tried to go for a fun, reclaimed industrial vibe. (I'd LOVE to live in your space!) The salvaged sink is smaller than the industrial light fixture. The plumber also hung my sink way too low. And everyone makes fun of my bar sink faucet. Whoops. It sounds expensive, but the sink was $15, and the light fixture was $5. When I run out of other projects in the new house, I'll get a bigger sink and have it moved up.

In order to minimize the cost of the trial and error method, I either shop second hand, or at stores that do returns. A major purchase like a couch is a little harder, so I'd try the colour on a mood board, or a slip cover over the old one to see if it works.

Oh, and for hanging art, you can suspend it from cables attached to the ceiling.

Big box stores, hardware stores and such carry brick hanger clips. Non-destructive, no holes needed, they are designed to clip over most bricks and can support up to 25 pounds, adequate for most things which need to be hung. No husband needed.

here's one kind

amberm145, big purchases are unfortunately not going to happen right now, so I hope I can get away with smaller, returnable stuff.
I actually thought about hanging things from the ceiling/beams, but I think that would make the art hang not flush to the wall... Not to mention having to talk my husband into maneuvering a drill so high up, haha.

blubird, I actually got really excited when I first saw those - they are still sitting in my amazon cart. But then I started reading reviews and realized that you need some clearance between the brick and the mortar for them to work, and our mortar is almost flush with the brick in most places. I'll probably still order a couple to see if I can find a spot to get it in, since that would solve literally all problems.

I have stuff hung with those Brick clips, and I have barely any clearance between the brick and mortar. Mine is just raked back a drop, but it's sufficient for these to grab hold. There's another type which I think needs more clearance

Alternate brick clips

Thank you, just ordered the original clips you recommended, since they seem to be working fine for you! One reviewer also mentioned that you can chisel away some mortar if need be - that's still much easier than waiting for the husband to get around to buying a drill attachment...

Let us know how it works out for you. Hopefully it will be the beginning of your new adventure.

You're getting lots of wonderful suggestions, that's great! Yes, you have a fantastic space to play with. : ) I love to check a stack of decorating books out of the library and sticky note things that appeal to me in them while I have them signed out. I also will look things up on pinterest and happily pin away things that appeal to me. I'd look up things like "interior brick wall decor" for your room.

A book that I really appreciate is The Nesting Place: It Doesn't Have to Be Perfect to Be Beautiful, by Myquillyn Smith. Her blog is here, but I appreciate how concise the book is even more than the blog.

I love Rebecca Robeson's style. She is an incredible decorator. She has a youtube channel, https://www.youtube.com/user/robesondesign. Most of her stuff is high end, but she also teaches you how to do things on the lower end of the spectrum. Right now she has a daily 25 days of Christmas tutorials on youtube. Lots of fun and inspiration.

Designers make the rules, we break the rules! It's all good to 'dance to your own drum.' Who knows, what you choose to today, may be tomorrow's newest trend. Start your search by using your 'equipment', be it a tablet, PC....use it. Print out pictures or bookmark pages. With houzz and pinterest, there's plenty of inspiration. And you tube is phenomenal! Be ready to sit, for hours! Keep a journal and catergorize your findings using headings;colors, furniture styles, accessories, etc, erc, etc. This can help you figure it out.