What style defines your decorating plans?

Recently, the publisher of a major industry magazine asked me to define the major style trends in the furniture and home fashion industry. This is not a new question - in fact, it is one I hear regularly through e-mail or when I am speaking at a home and garden shows. Many a homeowner about to embark on a decorating adventure asks "what style do you think I should redecorate my room with?"

Today, with our global markets, our passion for travel, and our quest for decorating advice and information, we are saturated with a vast selection of goods and styles. It is easy to find ourselves sitting in a room that ends up furnished with a wide range of furniture and accessories - so unlike the room we had envisioned. How did we get so off course? Defining your style preferences is an important first step in the design process.

There are two great things about home fashion today.

First, we are passionately encouraged to create truly unique, one-of-a-kind rooms.

Second, there is a global perspective on home fashion supported by a easily accessible supply of global glamour: art, textiles, furniture and accessories. We are supported by the industry to design homes that tell a story, reflect our personalities, and transcend any one specific style - rooms that are a personal journal of our adventures, our loves, our individuality and our creativity. Begin your decorating adventures by choosing one of the following styles:  

Traditional - Always in style, traditional rooms are a classic combination of subdued, saturated hues and familiar forms. Traditional styled rooms are home to fine antiques or period pieces, rich, dark, handsome woods, textiles such as silk, jacquards, velvet and damask fabrics, polished metals, and classic patterns like stripes and florals.

Design and placement is usually symmetrical, and accessories are most often displayed in pairs. This is the classic calling card for the perfect home.

Country - Casual living at its best. The perfect country home is a charming, heartfelt space that welcomes all with warm, cozy rooms, relaxed, oversized furnishings, earthy hues such as garden greens, sunny yellow and heavenly blues, soft lines and country-inspired motifs like roosters, mini florals and stripes. A country room is a room that embraces its visitors with its passion for life, good friends, family food, and fine wine.

Modern - Clean lines and powerful forms for a room that knows what it wants. A modern room is not wishy-washy about its style - it clearly understands that spatial relationships, colour, form and texture create the perfect home. A modern room is a masterpiece of design with its perfect sense of balance, scale and harmony. Look for sleek materials such as chrome, black or red leather, ultrasuede and glass.

Lifestyle - Ahhhhh . . . Life by the sea. Sun drenched days, moonlit nights, warm tropical breezes and the exotic splendor of island living.

Relaxed, easy living style to surround you with a trader's sense of adventure and romance. Rich, dark woods, natural fibers such as sisal,linen or crisp cotton, and island motifs make home a tropical adventure.

Transitional - Transitional rooms incorporate the most beautiful pieces and design elements from around the world, from both the past and the present. They are undeniably unique spaces reflecting a worldly and intuitive soul. A rapture of possibility, a transitional room is a lifelong search for what feels right at home.

Finding your style is an important step in the decorating process. A style will guide you through the selection of fabrics, colours, furniture, accessories and art. Research a style that appeals to you - tear photographs of rooms decorated in this style from magazines, visit a local book store and home furnishing centres. Gather ideas and inspiration and nurture a room that is styled just the way you like it.