When i was a teen, I started buying Architectural Digest and also IIRC ,a magazine called Metropolitan? When I first learned how to drive, I loved to drive around new neighborhoods and look at the house styles.

My Mom, who is wonderful in many ways, is not particularly gifted at decor. She veered very much in the colonial camp. Worse yet, my Dad took an interest in it and added his own unique twists which were pretty rustic. All this in an MCM split level. Uhh, no ...

When I was in college, though, they moved to a charming storybook stone cape, on a lot with a meandering brook and a little bridge at the entrance. They let me get involved in a lot of the decorating and it was/is lovely. My Dad and i bought these really lovely, tasteful floral sofas, and he chose a carpet in a very nice subdued shade of lavender-grey. My parents also went out and bought lovely cherry Stickley .... dining room set, secretary, end tables, and a La Barge brass and glass coffee table. When I got my first house I bought nearly a houseful of furniture from the same store.

I did however fall quite hard for the wallpaper border trend in a few rooms. My nephew lives there now and he and his wife have done a great job updating it.

My mother wasn't interested in decorating and, with 5 kids, our small ranch was modest and very cramped. I remember sitting in my shared bedroom, examining the room, and envisioning an addition that would be all mine, with floral drapery, super fluffy carpet, etc. I probably should have pursued architecture because I would draft floor plans where I would have a separate wing away from my siblings. (I've grown to love spending time with them as adults.)

I have redesigned and remodeled our current house that works perfectly for our family now. I've decorated it and love spending time at home. But I've been casually researching "aging in place" design for my next move. That won't be for a while but it's interesting to think about.

Think it all started when my Grandma took me on a charity tour of homes and gardens in our community, I was maybe 9. The tour gave me an opportunity to see houses that were beautifully put together and very interesting. My family and friend’s homes were nice, but not special or interesting. My Grandma who took me on the tour, was very artsy and had beautiful things in her home, but although artsy she did not seem to be able to use her talent in decorating her home. After the tour I was hooked, started looking at rooms and imagining decorating them differently. My first opportunity to decorate my room was at 12, had so much fun.

Considered majoring in Interior Design but silly me, I disliked the professor who ran the program and taught most of the classes, so I switched majors.

I grew up in a family where aesthetics always mattered. My mother subscribed to AD and Metropolitan (I forgot about that one, Mtn!) Plus she would pick up whatever French and UK magazines were available at the bookstore- Cote Est/Cote Ouest, Maisons Francaise, UK Homes & Garden, et al.

Making everything look good was always a part of the plan in my house (inside of cupboards and drawers always looked just as good as outside), and I just followed along. Whether she was dressing me or herself, a bed, a table or a whole house, all the details mattered. She did not fret about any of it. She just cared and got it right and moved on.

As a rule I can pretty effortlessly pull together a very nice space, regardless of budget. And while I am a very verbal person, I often can't articulate why things work or not. I am utterly fascinated when I see the people here answer a query with such spot-on explanations for their rationale. That talent and knowledge really impresses me to no end.

My mother was always interested in home decorating and gardening. She wasn't able to pass along her love of gardening to me, but she did influence my interest in home decor. My brother and I both have a good eye when it comes to decorating our spaces.

"Colonial," Mtn I think that was my mother's style, or as they called it back then "Early American" was just like the House in the Country in "I Love Lucy." Maple furniture and all. :) Her style was a good match in the four square we lived in.

Speaking of wallpaper which I've always loved, she wallpapered just one room, the dining room. It was the only room with wainscoting which was white, along with the window seat, and she used that same turkey red color for wallpaper with small Eagles on it made with that felt stuff, which I forget the name. The beat up table was a perfect match. lol

When I realized she was really serious about decorating was when she made her first visit to our newly built home, which was 4 hours away. DH had just graduated law school, we had two little one's, and money was tight.

She asked me, "What style of decorating are you going to do?" I replied, "Garage sales and hand me downs from my mom." :) It was an insulting question because I thought I had a style already & it showed, which was similar to her style. Guess not.

I want a La Barge coffee table soooooo bad!

Funny, I've had a La Barge coffee table for nearly 40 years now, and I've regretted my choice all that time. When I bought it, my main goal was the smallest, visually-lightest table I could find (400 sf apt) and I was going to order the smallest one with the shelf underneath, but they had another one without the shelf but with finials, that was 6" shorter. I've missed having that bottom shelf all these years and I've definitely never loved the finials.

I always think about replacing it, but it just seems wrong to ditch La Barge for Pier-1-grade stuff.

My Grandma was quite talented, especially given our very modest means, very limited access to stuff-any stuff, and virtual absence of any books or magazines on the topic.

I did start paying much closer deeper attention to the topic after pretty amazing workshop (which was partially dedicated to how spaces influence behavior)-and it was ..maybe 13 years ago? I became incredibly interested in the relationship between places and people, and started reading extensively in 2010.

But I loved houses from the very early age I suppose, Each place, each apartment was like a little world. I loved entering it. With some exceptions of gloomy public places..

I was very strongly prohibited to peek in other people's windows though-so I was constantly fighting myself. I liked to draw, and houses were one of my favorite subjects, and I would draw elaborate villages you might say. with chalk, in our very well known central park-and passing groups of international tourists always started chirping and smiling and taking photos, and giving me-very rare then to us-pink and green bubble gum..and I'm afraid it gave me positive reinforsement. Lol.

My mother was a Very talented decorator. She was reared in an orphanage, but the orphanage was on the edge of the wealthiest neighborhood in the city, so she went to school with the upper crust.

She worked with a designer and managed her shop.

I loved going around looking at shops and fabric stores growing up!

Just yesterday, I went into the small upholsterry fabric shop here, and when asked if I could be helped, I said, “No, thank you, I just came in to smell the fabric!!”

When my mother had wallpaper applied to the kitchen ceiling in 1956.

I suppose it was when I went off to college and got to decorate my dorm room. I remember hanging fish net on the wall to clip things to. After that was a series of apartments that I would imagine decorating but was lucky to afford a pot to pee in, as the saying goes. Mostly I scavenged things from my mother or had thrift shop clearance items.

My parents home was very nice. They designed it and built it in the late 50's. It is mcm, of course. They hired a decorator who did a nice job although my mother's taste was pretty bad and she managed to screw up most of it with her additions.

I was already 13 when we moved in. She told the decorator that my room was for the younger daughter, failing to mention that I was 13, not three. It was done in pink and blue with ballerinas. I hated it from the time I saw it. Would loved to have had some input into it.

There's not a room in that house that does not have some tasteless items that my mother added. She does have some lovely collectibles, though.

My son says nothing ever stays the same in my house. I'm always changing things.

I have no idea where my interest in decorating came from...my Grammy had a good eye, but my mom’s taste frustrated me! I vividly remember being ten years old and my parents had just built a traditional colonial house (early 80’s.) My bedroom was on the second floor in the front of the house, and my mom wanted the same, brown (!), lined, pinch pleated drapes for all the front windows so it would look uniform. I had already begged her to let me choose a different carpet than the mushroom color she chose for the rest of the upstairs. I chose a sunny yellow (egads) and remember bursting into tears when I saw those hideous brown drapes in my room. I was so upset, she agreed to let me choose my own, and I got ruffled white ones from Calico Curtains. It probably looked like poo from the street, but I always remember how nice my mom was to let me decorate my room my way.

I feel in love with all things British and Laura Ashley as a teen...and dreamed of my first home when I could go all out with a Ralph Lauren look, lol. I read everything I could find about design, and began a wonderful collection of design coffee table books. I love seeing how my taste has evolved through the years.

I have no memory of not being interested in decorating. My mother was/is very creative decorator and as a former art teacher she was pretty good at it. Now, she has WAY too much stuff so it is less desirable to be in her home. I remember decorating a dollhouse my father built me and loved re-arranging the furniture. I would also use legos and a flat lego surface to create "floor plans" for little toy mice i had, to live in...loved doing that...I had built in bunk beds before bunk rooms were a thing;). I recently applied for a job assisting a home stager and I so hope it works out! I also love renovating homes...mostly planning renovations. My style has definitely evolved, which is part of the fun for me (but can get expensive!).

Dedtired, I'm drinking my first cup of coffee and your post literally made me LOL. Thanks for waking me up!

Springroz!! Oh my gosh, my mom was also raised in an orphanage. She and her twin went there when they were 4 or 5. It was in Danville, VA, and mom would take us there in the summers and the home was out of GWTW, even with an indoor swimming pool. She stayed there until she was the legal age so maybe that was the beginning of her love of decorating? Mom had nothing but fond memories.

April, you wrote, "I was very strongly prohibited to peek in other people's windows though-so I was constantly fighting myself. " Well you should have hung out with me, The Peeping Tom of Decor. In college when we walked everywhere, at night when it was dark and we were walking somewhere, I'd make my friends slow down so I could see inside houses that had their curtains open. Easy peasy. :)

Nini, I used to love L.A. also, and I wish I could afford to turn my home into a R.L. showplace.

Wishing you luck JMC!

I was 3 years old in 1956. I still liked to have milk from my baby bottle before my nap. Mother asking, "Will I have to pack it in your lunch box when you start to school?" failed to embarrass me because I used flatware correctly and drank from a glass the rest of the time. I fell in love with a blond wood bedroom "suite" in my aunt's house. I want one just like it - including the bookcase headboard. I worked out a deal with my parents. After my new furniture was installed, I took my baby bottle outside to the garbage can!

Both parents cared about decor, so I claim I was born with furniture genes.

Décor. When I had to start designing for my new home.

Seriously, when I moved out on my own in the early 80s it was to a rag tag "condo" with many flaws. I got leftover parental furniture and tag sale bargains, but I did get one good sofa bed and one good wall organizer stand.

No budget to think about a taste. I called my décor "tag sale remnants and early book". Yes, I kept developing lots of books. And bought cheap formaldehyde-laden shelving for them.

That was early 80s.

I moved to a house proper in 1991.

It was nice and well-kept, but I was racing away from the putative coke dealer above my head at the condo I'd vacated, and didn't give a diddly about décor or whatever.

Okay, I knew by then that the grey walls in all the bedrooms and the bath and a half bored the gourd out of me (when they weren't just simply depressing me) so I repainted them all different pastels. Not with any theme in mind. And my furniture and other décor still had no theme either. At least this stuff wasn't GRAY! I left the hallway, living/dining areas white throughout my tenancy.

I did have fun with the kitchen. It was all white when I moved in, drab because it faced east (which in this case did NOT mean morning sun, but meant the dark hillside that went UP behind it). I turned the trim into country blue, leaving the rest white.

About 12 years ago, I re-painted the kitchen what I call "Tequila Morning Sunrise", and changed out the hardware. Even though by this point I'd already bought my land that eventually became my current house, I wanted to do SOMETHING while still there. It was kind of crazy, but I needed this by then. I definitely don't recommend it, but it was something that made mornings bright and cheerful for me, considering how small and dysfunctionally-designed my kitchen was.

(That's part I of my post... my non-aesthetic me. I believed back then I should live with what I had, minimal changes... something psychological about hiding under the treeline or something...) Be glad for any hand me downs, or for some good tag sale buys...

I bought this lot back in 97 or 98, but with no idea of what I'd build here at the time. I just knew I was drawn to country, and wanted for whatever reason to raise chickens, goats and whatever so forth.

The first design pattern with an honest to god architect fell through. This rural spot does NOT support a half million dollar home. I went log, with their log designer, with me modifying, and me discovering the GW Kitchen Forum at some point in the latter of 2015. I suddenly decided I was interested in décor and interior design when getting plans together. Yes, believing in Waste Not Want Not, I've incorporated a lot of the inherited furniture into my home, but had no problem gifting that mahogany dining room set off to a helpful handyman for nothing. Knowing I wanted color in my home, and didn't want too much guesswork, I settled on using the Sherwin Williams "Global Spice" palate for my house colors. As my second choice for building turned out to be a log set up, I worked this palate around the logs, and I love them.

I've permitted myself to be active in home décor and interior design since the late 2015's and until now. Frankly, I am seriously glad I did not hire an interior decorator. Seeing all those monochrome kitchens they seem to love here on GW/Houzz.. No EFFING way. I am glad I DID realize I didn't entirely know what colors mesh, that thus I did the Sherwin Williams palate mentioned above - and that I could recognize that even a color or two on that scheme didn't work for me, either.

I'm still working on improving the aesthetics. Takes time. I'm amazingly really "into" this these days! Bringing the best of the old, into the new.

My parents had good taste but my mother didn't particularly like to decorate as a process, and wasn't at all interested in shelter magazines. Once the apartment was "done", it stayed that way until something needed replacing (updating was out of the question as long as everything was still serviceable). But we lived in Manhattan and she did enjoy shopping and window shopping, and back in the 70s, 80s, and even early 90s, Altman's had a lovely furniture department, Macy's had a very good one, and we'd walk through, and also around the Upper East Side looking at things, afterwards having lunch at a coffee shop.

When I went to college, I took a binder stuffed with tear sheets from the late great House & Garden (later HG) magazine. Those pictures and ideas sustained me for years, through dorm rooms, first a shared house with roommates and then an efficiency/deficiency basement apartment on Capitol Hill, and a rental in NYC when I moved back. I was able to go shopping at Macy's and Altman's with my mother for furniture, which was lots of fun : ) . Even more fun was buying my first apartment, which I loved. But a few years after that I met my husband-to-be and moved to a tiny 1950s bungalow on a farm in western Canada. Thank goodness I still had that binder lol.

My mother was an artist, so she set herself up as a decorator to buy designer furniture wholesale for our family. She also would draw up floor plans and elevations for friends and family. Thus I grew up in a decorating environment and thought that's how everybody lived. I won't claim to have decorating in my DNA, more nurture than nature.

My mother always said that I took on the role of the family decorator at age 3. With both my parents being the youngest in their families, when they married, there were not many family hand-me-downs left for them, and never enough artwork, in my opinion. Mom said that I started telling her where we needed more paintings at 3. When she told me there were no more at the moment to hang, I took it upon myself to help out. While she napped one afternoon with my little sister and new baby brother, I borrowed a dining room chair and her red lipstick and drew a number of paintings (complete with frames, Mom said), on the walls for them. Needless to say, that did not go over very well and they were incredibly ungrateful!. From age 6 on, I spent many an early Saturday morning rearranging the furniture around our house with the help of my 5 y/o sister and 4 y/o brother while my parents "slept in" . . . until 7:30 AM . . . poor Mom & Dad! Again, they were ungrateful, but considered it harmless enough. At least I wasn't adding new paintings to their walls anymore! When I was 10, my mom gave me a binder, a sheaf of graph paper, pencils, and a couple old Sears catalogs. I was in heaven, drawing up room layouts and then choosing furniture and accessories for them from the catalogs! As far back as I can remember, I've always loved to decorate. After a number of years as an RT, I went back to college to study interior design and art history. I never finished my degree, though, as our first baby came along unexpectedly and he took precedence over everything else in my life. These days, I decorate for others only occasionally. I completely redid our local grade school's staff lounge for them. That was a huge hit. At the moment, I'm heading the decorating committee at a local church, as we redecorate the huge social hall, library, etc. for a big church anniversary. This time, there are plenty of paintings to go around. I love it!

I found this recently. When I was a little kid, I decided that the endpapers of books needed decoration. I drew this in a Dunbar Furniture catalog:

Like most on here, I got the decorating gene from my mother. My dad, as my mom used to say, has pretty good taste when it comes to liking unique things, but he has zero ability to put them together coherently. That was the source of many arguments between my parents, and now that mom is gone, dad's condo looks like a circus tent. I'm probably exaggerating a wee bit. He still has a lot of mom's great stuff, so it isn't that bad. His new additions . . . In defense of his side of the family, dad's sisters had pretty good taste so I get it from both sides. I have some lovely pieces from all of them. I'm not a natural when it comes to decorating as far as knowing what to do, thinking out of the box, which I why I come here. But I know what does and does not look good when it is finished.

As a kid I followed mom along to country auctions, helped her pick fabrics and wallpapers as she redecorated the family home, helped her refinish furniture, make curtains and tablecloths, etc. I used to make my own Barbie doll furniture and had several "apartments" arranged on shelves in my bedroom. I also cut pictures out of catalogs and magazines to create rooms for my paper dolls. My lovely creative mom was the source of my inspiration and she nurtured it.

Like everyone else, when I was on my own, I tried to make a LOOOOONG series of apartments look nice with whatever I could scrounge or occasionally buy, but I've only rarely had enough money for more than just the basics. A few times I relished buying some of the nice things I have now. Other things I inherited one way or the other, cast offs from grandma, mom, friends, aunts, etc.

When I bought my first house, I started seriously studying indoor decor. Like April, I am interested in how the environment affects your moods and ads or detracts from your quality of life. Both outside, and then later inside. I bought some decorating theory books and even found a free feng shui book at the dump, ahem recycling center. That's when I started posting here, it was a daunting task for me which started with a disaster of a paint color choice, so I still sympathize with the many posters here who start on this forum, finding themselves in the same boat as I was in.

I finally got my house pretty much the way I wanted it, but then sadly had to move. Now I am ever so slowly trying to re-inhabit the house I inherited from my parents, with most of my late mother's lovely things in it. Like Marie Kondo, I want to do justice to her things, at least the nice ones that "spark joy" in me. The rest of the stuff, I'm trying to get rid of. It's been frustratingly slow. I come here to mostly dream now.