You do it everyday: come home.  Coming home is gratifying, but what if you could turn it into your greatest pleasure? Home should be your sanctuary and refuge, and should serve varied needs.  Home should provide you with physical comfort and visual pleasure but most of all, as sanctuary, home should reflect the lives of those who dwell there.  To live in a home that invites and nurtures, express your individuality.  First, question your needs and desires.  Then, admit what you really love.  Finally, embrace your personality.  Discovering your personal style is an exhilarating adventure and is the crucial first step to make coming home a joyful pleasure.

Having difficulty defining your personal style?  Put away the crystal ball.  Personal style is no mystery.  Expressing your personal style creates a home that reflects your own distinct personality.  For clues, look to other lifestyle choices.  What about your most cherished piece of clothing, your favorite travel destination, or that color you adore expresses you and your joy for life? The soft texture? The sunwashed lifestyle? The color’s emotional response?  

Is your personal style Casual, expressed with informal, comfortable furniture, neutral colors, and natural materials? Contemporary, exemplified by sleek, streamlined furnishings, minimal patterns, and bold colors?  Do you like the Country feel—cozy plump sofas, distressed and painted woods, and a worn patina?  Or do you defy a common style category?  Coin your own, one that expresses the feeling you want in your home.  Maybe its Urban Southwest, Mexican Modern, or Tropical Desert but uniquely you.

Start a style file—a place to collect objects and ideas that will start to define your matchless home.  Browse through architectural or design magazines and tear out pages containing colors, objects, forms, furniture, and entire rooms that strike you. When you find a curry gold that sparks your imagination, an old table that inspires possibilities, or a photo of a snow-covered mountain that speaks to a longed-for feeling, add them to your collection.  Ideas will flow and your footprint style will surface. With your personal style defined, making choices for your space becomes easier and more focused. Unveil your style, surround yourself with it, and transform your home to one that inspires you and all those who enter.

Before you decorate, contemplate.  Reflect on your current spaces.  How do they make you feel and how do they function?  Do an honest personal audit of the way you live.  Think about how you currently experience your home and identify sources of pleasure as well as frustration.

Next, nail down your needs in the spaces.  In order for your home to meet your unique needs you need to know what those needs are.  Who uses the space?  How is the space utilized?  What is required for the space to work?

Now it is time to dream, to get a clear vision of the way you desire to live.  What do you really love and what do you want your home to be?   What is the feeling you want?  Calm?  Sophisticated?  Casual?  Sassy?  What is the feeling you want others to experience?  There are likely an array of objects, colors and styles (in the media, in the mall, in your mail) that pull at your heartstrings, and may drag on your pocketbook. Faced with many unneeded temptations, bringing into your home only those components that reflect the feeling you desire proves difficult.  Clean out your home of objects that are no longer useful or pleasing, and create a personally inspired space that expresses the life you wish for.

Making home your greatest pleasure is a satisfying indulgence.  Throw out stodgy rules and relish the joys of decorating your way.  When your heart and your home are in harmony, you will feel comfortable living there, and guests will feel more at ease.  This exhilarating adventure begins with self-examination and ends in a soul-restoring experience: coming home.