--Last time, I talked about finding your style without buying anything new. But let's be real. Eventually, you're going to buy something. A sofa. A light fixture. Tile. And that's where most of us get into trouble.
Because the internet is very good at telling us what we should want.
I see it all the time. A client sends me a photo, and they love it. Then we talk for ten minutes and it turns out they don't love it at all. They love that everyone else seems to love it. Those are two very different things.
So before you buy anything for your home, I want you to run it through three questions.
1. Would I still love this if no one ever saw it? No guests. No Instagram. Just you, on a Tuesday night, in your sweats. If the answer is yes, keep going. If you hesitated, that's your answer.
2. Does it fit my word? If you did the exercise from my last letter, you have one word for how you want your home to feel. Grounded. Soft. Warm. Hold this new thing up against it. Does it belong? Or does it belong in someone else's house?
3. Will it tell my story in ten years? Trends have a shelf life. Your story doesn't. Ask yourself if this piece will feel like a chapter of your life later, or a date stamp.
Three yeses? Buy it and enjoy it. Anything less, sleep on it.
Now, confession time. I do this for a living, and I still fell for one.
White. Everything white.
I grew up in the 80s and 90s, with all that color. So when millennial gray took over, I never fell for it. It always felt cold to me. I was a little proud of that.
But white? I overdid white. In my last house, the outside was white. The windows were white. The walls were white. The kitchen was white.
Turns out dodging one trend doesn't make you immune to the next one. I skipped right past gray and walked straight into white.
So for our build, I'm running everything through those three questions. Including me. This time I am bringing color baby! Think limestone, copper, yellows, pinks, greens.
I'm not saying trends are bad. Some of them are beautiful, and sometimes a trend and your truth happen to line up. That's lucky. Enjoy it. Just make sure you're choosing it because it's yours, not because it's everywhere.
Your home is your autobiography. Write it in your own words.
Hit reply and tell me: what's the one trend you're secretly tempted by right now? No judgment. I'll tell you mine.
— Aubs
