5 Signs You Missed Your Calling; Become a Home Decorator

Estimated reading time: 7 minutes

Is your Pinterest board full of pins with titles like ‘Furniture I Love’ or ‘DIY to Try’? Do you visit family and friends and secretly begin critiquing their decor selection in your head? Well you might be, or should have been, an home decorators or even maybe a designer.

First, lets clarify the difference as they are not one in the same. I’ve know many Interior Designers who frowned upon being thought of as only decorators to a space. It’s more than color and fabric selection people!

See Also: 20 Modern Open Living Room Ideas

The National Council for Interior Design Qualification (NCIDQ) states “Interior design is the art and science of understanding people’s behavior to create functional spaces within a building. 

Decoration is the furnishing or adorning of a space with fashionable or beautiful things. In short, interior designers may decorate, but decorators do not design.”

So is my addiction to home decorating a problem or what?

For you probably not but perhaps to your loved ones around you. If you are constantly rearranging furniture in your living room or moving that chic little artwork you grabbed at a yard sale, you could have missed your calling as an home decorators.

But seriously, what the heck is that artwork … an elephant and a monkey battling it out in a submarine or an accident of twisted metal meshed together, I don’t know.

Either way, chances are you have a creative mind and vision for how a room should be tied together. In addition, you consider the transition from one space to another as an opportunity to enhance the home experience. You also approach design challenges in a logical and cohesive manner.

Any of these symptoms sound familiar to you or someone you know?

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1. Obsessing About Decorating Details

Sure Kelly’s new home looks great but did you see the vanity door knobs she used? Gross!

Your attention to detail is uncanny. You pick-up the subtle little differences in aesthetic and once you notice a discrepancy to the natural order of things, its like a glaring beacon of everything that is wrong with the world.

What was she thinking with the finish on that table lamp … and was that a ‘clap on’?!

We definitely agree that the “devil is in the detail” and a thorough approach to a complete space can make all the difference.

But maybe in the daily routine of balancing the 3 kids, Kelly is more worried about keeping a lamp, any lamp available for lighting purposes as its the second replacement this month.

2. Knowing More Colors than a Crayon Box

Sure sometimes it sounds like you are just making up words;

• Sarcoline, Coquelicot, Smaragdine, Mikado, Glaucous, Wenge, Fulvous, Xanadu, Falu, Eburnean, Amaranth

Yup, all totally legit colors as mentioned in a Mental Floss post.

But you know all the primary colors on the color wheel as well as the complementary and tertiary colors. You can recognize what colors go well together. In addition, you know which ones should never be paired. You also understand how these color combinations can ultimately effect how a space feels.

Sure that drawing from little Billy went outside the lines and by golly it is the best drawing of a cat … or train that you’ve ever seen. But that doesn’t stop you from noticing the mixture of purple with brown crayons on the paper.

Like an eye sore greater than that train … goat … maybe a kangaroo with potted flowers? You cannot help be instantly impacted by color selection. Get with it Billy!

3. Finding a Yard Sale is like Winning the Lottery

You get that immediate high when you see a sign ‘Yard Sale’ … you start to shiver at the thought of what gold mine you might happen across. You don’t have any money but have the secret glove compartment yard sale deal stashed away for just this occasion.

Scoring antique furniture, unique artwork, and one-of-a-kind lighting fixtures gives you a thrill like no other. Now how can you get it for less. Old lady Maria over here doesn’t know she’s sitting on your next show stopping centerpiece.

Have you ever got together with a family member or friend and said, today is a nice day so let’s go find some yard sales!

You are committed to finding great deals and reviving old pieces. You are resourceful and can make almost any find work within your well organized home.

4. Refinishing Furniture is a Hobby of Yours

As almost a necessity to hunting for yard sales, the fun is afterwards when you unleash your creativity. Bringing back to life worn old relics is a passion of yours.

You enjoy spending spare time in your workshop area, where ever it might be, to make something spectacular out of something old. You do not completely remove the traces of its rich history but instead choose to celebrate them.

Now you have the perfect place in mind for where this will go in the house. Or you know someone who will love to get a new cafe style table and chairs.

5. Feeling Fabrics for unusually Long Periods of Time

Are you thinking Cretonne, Tapestry, and Toile de Jouy? I know me too!

Sure everyone thinks they know fabrics. Heck I’m wearing a cotton shirt right now. But you know what might work best given any home appearance, personal lifestyle and functionality of a space.

Matching not only the color pallet of a room but embracing the emotion of the space, you can capture the essence of what a space should feel like with the incorporation of fabrics on the floor, walls and furniture.

Why do you think the living room feels cozy and light? You planned it that way.

That’s why you cannot stand heading into the deep dark dungeon of Kelly’s bathroom – with its hard cold tile and terrible blue/gray color tones. I mean use the shower curtain, window curtain, towel display, or something to lighten the feel up with fabrics, I mean HELLO.

Some basic fabric 101 lessons are needed.

Home Decorators; 5 Signs You Missed Your Calling

So chances are you might have an attribute or two that fit you in with the home decorators. You are a creative individual with a passion for adorning of your home with fashionable things in a cohesive and well thought out manner.

Just take it easy on the rest of us and your friend Kelly. Also stop haggling with old Maria on that furniture set, you’re already getting a steal of a price.