Thoughts On The Collected Interior
For me the collected interior is about layering storied decor and slow decorating, taking the time to carefully choose what you bring into your home.
It is not so much an interior style as a method of and ethos to decorating. A collected interior could be farmhouse or coastal, Grandmillennial or modern. It isn't the style so much as the approach.
Isn't this how most of us decorate and furnish our homes? Not like TLC with a miracle overnight or with an expensive designer delivering a pretty room tied up in a bow.
Purpose Driven Decor
The collected interior is about collecting decor and furnishings that have meaning either through personal sentiment or historic character: the travel memento, the family heirloom, the amazing estate sale find!
I want the objects I surround myself with to have timeless appeal and charm. Their function has to go hand in hand with their beauty. As the great craftsman William Morris said...
“Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.”
Sharing Your Story
Perhaps most importantly the collected interior shares the story of your life — where you have been and where you are going. It is a way to share your journey through furnishings and finishings, showing your personality and your tastes.
When guests come over I want them to instantly know this is my house — for it to be obvious who lives here. My home decor showcases my collections and the pieces that have meaning to me, but I never want it to feel like a showplace for others.
I decorate first and foremost for myself and my family!
Yes! I Decorate My Collected Interior
There is a growing hashtag on Instagram: #collectednotdecorated. It implies that decorating is somehow bad as if wanting to beautify your home is shallow.
On one hand I understand and agree with the nuanced point advocates of this are making that you shouldn't add furnishings and decor merely because they look good or they are trending.
Agreed! I want everything in my home from the knick knack on my end table to the draperies covering my windows to have a deeper purpose. BUT this doesn't mean I'm not considering the aesthetics of them!
I VERY much am!
Because when we surround ourselves with beauty it elevates the everyday!
So I use "decorate" in concert with "collected" because I collect to beautify my home. I don't see a conflict there.
Challenges of The Collected Interior
Decorating a collected home isn’t easy; there are several challenges to creating a collected interior that looks beautiful, functions well, and feels deeply personal.
Balancing Eclecticism
First of all, you have to be a curator, which is part hunter, part critic, and part editor. The layering of a collected room is key. There has to be intention behind the eclectic mix to add personality and depth to a room in a way that does NOT become cluttered chaos.
There is a precarious balance between eclectic overdose, cluttered mess, and styled perfection. Yes, that is subjective: one person's cluttered mess is another's comforting sanctuary.
But the way you mix collections and decor can feel harmonious - like they are meant to be together - OR feel fragmented and clashing.
Contrast is good, but common threads need to run through the space to tie the eclecticism together. YOU are that common thread, so I find understanding and articulating your style can be pivotal to making a collected interior work.
You maybe more familiar with this concept when it comes to your wardrobe, but I find articulating just what you value when it comes to how your home should look can really help define your interior style and tastes. Learn more about that here!
Another important way to weave common threads through a space is with a solid vision for the room that structures the design around an inspiration piece. I teach this method in my course about sourcing and decorating a collected room.
The Collected Room Method
A self-paced online course for sourcing and decorating a beautiful and inviting room with secondhand finds and antiques.
Finding The Right Piece
The other challenge to a collected interior that can be really frustrating is finding the right piece at the right price and dealing with the slow aspect of collected design.
Sourcing takes time and effort. But when you need the nuts and bolts in a room for your home to function this wait can be really difficult. It becomes so tempting to give in and buy a piece just for now.
Then there is the price tag of it all! When you want to fill your home with antiques and quality collected decor that can be a challenge on a budget. This is where I've found it so beneficial to shop the secondhand market, hunting thrifts, estate sales, and auctions for the right piece.
Over the course of decorating my home and sourcing for my shop, I've developed efficient strategies to find those amazing pieces. But it's taken a decade to hone those skills, and you have to love the thrill of the hunt. Good thing I do!
Knowing It Is The Right Piece
It can be a real struggle to make decisions about what IS the right piece to bring into a room!
You can totally undermine yourself with hesitations and then miss out on a great piece. Or you feel overwhelmed by all the decisions that go into decorating a room and you become mired down in uncertainty.
It's all well and good to say: buy what you love and it will all work together. In reality that gets us into trouble more often than not. What you love may not be what the room needs to function or maybe it's the wrong scale or the wrong color.
Over the years, I've developed a checklist of sorts to reason through a purchase and decide if it is the right piece for the room. When I take time to consider the questions on my checklist I spare myself headaches and wasted funds. You can find the checklist in The Collected Room Method!
Committed To The Collected Interior
Despite these challenges I will ALWAYS choose the collected interior over the one right out of a catalog!
I'm NOT saying mixing in new decor and furnishings is bad, rather I believe it is necessary for modern living.
What I NEVER want is:
The new to overwhelm the old...
A selection to have NO personal connection...
The utilitarian to supersede beauty or vice versa...
A trend to dominate and feel disingenuous...
To impress others and not inspire the inhabitants of my own home.
Home Should Be...
For me home should feel layered in timeless pieces full of story with the intention of creating a beautiful setting for life's greatest and often simplest joys.
I want a home of expression, belonging, and invitation:
where family gathers,
friends linger,
laughter abounds,
traditions flourish,
and everyday living feels inspired.
I believe the collected interior is the best way to do that.
The collected interior is an inspiring atmosphere where personal expression permeates to create a sense of belonging that can then be extended in invitation, welcoming others inside!
If you too are trying to fashion this type of home, I invite you to explore my course - The Collected Room Method.
It is a purposeful exploration of how to decorate a collected room with a clear vision; scour the secondhand market for the right antiques and furnishings to make your space comfortable and inviting; and gain confidence in your decisions knowing they are best for your collected space!
Welcome to Pender & Peony!
Let's collect a traditional home with timeless style full of storied decor for inspired living!
Cordially,
Katherine
The Collected Room Method
A self-paced online course for sourcing and decorating a beautiful and inviting room with secondhand finds and antiques.
Fakes, Reproductions, & False Labels...
Everywhere!
So many antique malls don't even have antiques!
When hunting treasures how do you know what is authentic and not mislabeled?
You need to educate yourself ASAP, so you're not wasting money on knock-offs!
But how do you sift through all the millions of articles and books out there to get to the point?
Hi there! I'm Katherine...
the curator, writer in residence, and decorator behind Pender & Peony.
I’ve decorated my entire 1960s brick colonial with secondhand finds and antiques on a budget without sacrificing style, quality, or comfort.
You CAN have a traditional home with timeless charm on a budget too!
The problem isn't your taste -- it's an industry that glorifies the next big trend and only showcases high end custom design.
That's why I created The Collected Room Method to teach you my approach to the collected interior!