Short answer
Do not start by picking a style name. Start by collecting thirty to fifty images of rooms you like, without thinking about why, then look for what repeats — the light levels, the color temperature, how full the rooms are, the materials, the amount of pattern. The repeated elements are your style. The label comes afterwards, if at all.
Then do the same for rooms you dislike. Knowing what to exclude is faster and more useful than knowing what to include, and most people are much clearer about it.
On this page
The method: collect, then read
Step one: collect without judgment. Save every room image that stops you, from anywhere — magazines, Pinterest, Instagram, hotels you have stayed in, a friend's house. Do not filter for consistency, budget or realism. Do not try to build a coherent board. Aim for thirty to fifty images across a few weeks, because what you save on a Tuesday evening differs from what you save on a Sunday morning, and both are data.
Step two: read them. Lay them out together and look for repetition. Specifically:
- Light. Are these rooms bright and open, or low, warm and layered? This is often the most consistent thread and the least noticed.
- Color temperature. Warm neutrals and wood tones, or cool greys and crisp whites? Saturated color, or almost none?
- Density. How full are the rooms? Some people are drawn to spare, uncluttered spaces; others to layered rooms with books, objects and pattern. Neither is better and they are hard to mix.
- Line. Straight, geometric and architectural, or curved, soft and organic?
- Material. Which materials keep appearing — oak, walnut, painted wood, stone, brass, iron, linen, velvet, glass?
- Pattern. None, small and quiet, or bold and unignorable?
- Age. Is there anything antique or vintage in these rooms, or is everything new?
Step three: collect the opposites. Find ten rooms you actively dislike and work out why. “Too cold,” “too busy,” “too matched,” “feels like a showroom,” “nowhere to put a cup of tea.” This list is enormously useful and takes twenty minutes.
Step four: check it against your life. A room you love in a photograph may not survive a large dog, small children or the way you actually spend an evening. This is not a reason to abandon the aesthetic — it is a reason to find the durable version of it. Pale upholstery exists in performance fabric. Layered rooms can have wipeable surfaces where the drinks land.
The major styles, defined
Labels are shorthand, not rules. They are useful for communicating quickly and dangerous when treated as a set of requirements. Here are the ones that come up most often in Dallas homes.
| Style | Recognizable by | Common in |
|---|---|---|
| Traditional | Symmetry, classical proportion, wood furniture, patterned textiles, layered lighting | Highland Park, University Park, established neighborhoods |
| Transitional | Traditional structure with modern restraint — simpler lines, quieter palette | The most requested style in DFW by a wide margin |
| Contemporary | Current shapes, clean lines, restrained palette, considered negative space | Newer builds, Preston Hollow rebuilds |
| Mid-century modern | Tapered legs, warm woods, low profiles, graphic pattern, 1950s–60s references | Period homes and as an accent within transitional rooms |
| Old World / Mediterranean | Textured plaster, iron, carved wood, warm earth tones, arched openings | Spanish and Tuscan-influenced Dallas architecture |
| Rustic | Natural materials with visible texture, reclaimed wood, honest finishes | Ranch properties, lake houses, accent rooms |
| Eclectic | Deliberate mixing held together by a consistent thread of color, scale or tone | Homes with collections and travel |
Two things worth saying plainly. First, most real homes are transitional, because most people want something that feels current without feeling temporary. Second, eclectic is the hardest to do well, not the easiest. A room that mixes freely holds together only when something is rigorously consistent underneath — usually palette or scale. Without that discipline, eclectic simply reads as unresolved.
And a style label does not have to be flattering to be right. Jan Revels' clients have run from Traditional and Old World to Mid-Century Modern and Mediterranean, and, in her own words, “just plain funky.” The style that matters is the client's.
When two people want different things
This is the normal case, not the exception, and it is more tractable than it feels.
- Have each person collect independently, without seeing the other's images. Joint collecting produces polite convergence rather than honest preference.
- Compare the underlying qualities, not the images. Two people can save completely different rooms that share light level, palette and density. The overlap is usually far larger than either expected.
- Name the true non-negotiables — one or two each, not a list. “The chair stays.” “No dark rooms.” “I need somewhere to work.” Everything not on that list is negotiable, which is a liberating discovery.
- Divide by room rather than by object. A house where one person's taste leads in the study and the other's in the bedroom works far better than every room being an averaged compromise. Averaged rooms please nobody.
A useful part of a designer's job is being the neutral third party in this conversation. It is a great deal easier to hear “that scale will not work in this room” from a professional than from a spouse.
Listening to the house
Your taste is one input; the building is another. A 1930s Highland Park house has proportions, window shapes, ceiling heights and trim profiles that carry their own logic. You do not have to obey it — some of the best rooms come from a deliberate collision — but working against it accidentally produces rooms that feel subtly wrong without anyone being able to say why.
Three things to notice in your own house:
- Proportion. Ceiling height, window height and door height set the scale everything else is measured against. Furniture that is fine in a photograph of a room with ten-foot ceilings can look wrong under eight.
- Light. Which way the principal rooms face, and what the light does at the hours you use them. North light is cool and steady; west light in a Texas summer is a force to be reckoned with. Paint colors behave completely differently under each — which is why samples must be judged in the actual room, at several times of day, and never in the store.
- Existing detail. Trim profiles, floors, staircases, fireplaces, arches. These either get worked with, replaced deliberately, or fought accidentally.
More on the specific quirks of older local housing stock in the Park Cities renovation guide.
How to brief a designer
Bring the following to a first meeting and the conversation will be twice as productive:
- Your saved images — all of them, including the contradictory ones. A designer reads them the way described above, and the contradictions are often the most informative part.
- Your dislike list. Ten rooms and why.
- What stays. The inherited chest, the rug you love, the painting the room has to be built around. Say this early; it is far harder to accommodate late.
- How you actually live. Who is in the house, what happens in each room, when you entertain and how, whether people eat in the living room, whether the dog is on the sofa. Answer honestly rather than aspirationally — designing for the life you wish you had produces rooms nobody uses.
- Your budget, out loud. See the fees guide for why withholding it costs you time.
- Your timeline, and anything fixed. A wedding, a birth, family arriving at Thanksgiving.
One warning about your saved images: a photographed room is styled, professionally lit, and usually contains no post, no thermostat, no television and no visible power outlet. It is a photograph of an idea. Take the qualities from it — the light, the palette, the mood — rather than expecting the object.
Key takeaways
- Collect first, label later. Thirty to fifty images, saved without filtering, then read for what repeats.
- Light level, color temperature, density, line, material and pattern are the qualities that actually define your taste.
- A dislike list is faster to produce and often more useful than a like list.
- When two people disagree, compare underlying qualities and divide by room rather than averaging every decision.
- Judge paint and finishes in your own room, at several times of day — never in the store.
- Bring the contradictory images to your designer. They are data, not confusion.
Frequently asked questions
What if I like several different styles?
Do I have to commit to one style for the whole house?
Is my style going to look dated in ten years?
Can a designer work with furniture I already own?
How do I choose paint colors?
Jan has practiced interior design in Dallas since 1997 and founded Chateau Concepts in 2001. She holds a BFA in Interior Design from the University of North Texas. She designs and general-contracts residential and commercial projects across the Park Cities, Preston Hollow and North Dallas. Read her full profile →
Written and reviewed by Jan Revels before publicationWork with Chateau Concepts
Jan Revels handles both sides of a project in Dallas and the Park Cities — the design and the build.