Archive for September, 2009

Leslie Hassler Explains the Correlation Between Interior Design Styles & Personality

I love quizzes! With the invention of Facebook, I am now the quiz queen. One of the quizzes I like to take repeatedly is “What is your design style?” I find it interesting that the results are often different each time I take it. I suppose that it may have to do with what mood I am in for the day, but it also has to do with my personality.

Personality is one thing that we infuse into our clients’ homes as Interior Designers. It can be easy to ascertain someone’s personality or it can be something that is revealed slowly over time. Either way it is my job to figure it out quickly and develop a luxurious home for my clients. We are psychologists that enter a home and quickly determine the likes/dislikes, ebb and flow of the home. I actually can get more from walking a client’s home than they can tell me. I get a handle on how they organize, what their interests are, where they have lived, and what they place importance on.

So let’s look at some rooms and let me share what they tell me about the clients. For the purpose of this article, I am going to refer to personality traits as outlined by the Myers-Briggs Personality types and defined by www.personalitypathways.com. I found the connection of personality traits to people’s interiors very interesting, so much so that taking a Myers-Briggs personality test may become a requirement for my clients.

Contemporary With An Eclectic Twist

This home, published in the Spring 2007 edition of Luxe Magazine , is in Houston, TX.  Created for and designed by photographer Cara Barer, it is a very clean structured room with interesting pops of color.  Perhaps most interesting to me is the choice of rug.  Although not shown here, the clients have quite the art collection that expresses their humor and eclecticism.  All the art is placed in livable, touchable ways.  Notice the pillows in this room.  For all of the conformity of the room, the pillows are styled in an unstructured way.  Did you notice the pillow on the Eames lounge chair? It’s a long hair shaggy pillow.  It is very soft and is beckoning you to come and relax.  To me, this client would be a Sensing, Thinking, Extraversion, Perceiving personality. Now in English, these homeowners favor structure and organization, living in the “here-and-now”(Sensing).  They approach things in a logical, objective manner (Thinking), but are drawn to experience the outside world (Extraversion/Perceiving).  The rug and ivory tusks speak to the ethnic influences of the clients.  These Perceiving preferences also speak to the openness of the space and the lack of closure.  This space also serves as a mental retreat from the bombardment of messages we receive on a daily basis. For such a primary living space, none of the photographs showed a TV. This space was meant to be lived in, even with the structure, offering the clients a visual and mental escape.

A Traditional Retreat in Opulence

This Master Bathroom was created by Sherry Hayslip in Dallas, TX.  Also featured in the Spring 2007 edition of Luxe Magazine, it is a completely different style, much more textural, much more opulent than the image before.  There is a lot of warmth and comfort built into this space.  I would guess more influenced by the personality of the wife, I would categorize this client as an Intuition, Feeling, Introversion, Judging personality.  There is a balance achieved between the structure and detail given to the space, speaking to the Judging trait, and the big picture, visceral qualities of the Feeling trait in this room.  This is a place of imaginings and day dreams.  There is a certain order achieved through the casing of the door and arched opening, the tile pattern and the large scale repeat of the wallpaper.  Yet even through this order, the pattern of the marble and the effect of the wallpaper are abstract (Intuition), grounded on the earth, but a little ethereal too.  The overall space is a luxurious spa atmosphere that creates a cocoon, a place of reflection and escape for the client (Introversion). Don’t you just want to crawl into the picture, sit on the chaise and cuddle up under that blanket? While these clients sought a home that they could forever live in and be able to host charitable functions in, the property located in the heart of Dallas, is well treed and on several acres, reinforcing the Introversion need for a private retreat from the outside world.

What does your home say about you? Is your home free of clutter, or do you have mementos that remind you of your life? Is your room colorful or more muted? Personalities are unique and understanding a client’s personality is one of the many tools that Interior Designers employ to create a home for their clients.

Leslie Hassler is the principal of Luxury For The Home, a residential interior design firm based in Houston, TX.  Her designs are developed to define and enhance the personal style of her clients.  She believes that a luxurious home is one that is crafted by considered choices and quality, creating a sophisticated simplicity. 281-701-2461.