With the decision made and the land bought, reality set in: we ARE going to build a house in the Swiss Alps!
While we are still yet to confirm whether Kevin from Grand Designs will be there to roll his eyes at us, regardless, we celebrated a dream come true and eagerly cracked open the bubbly!
But as the last drops left the champagne bottle, our thoughts turned to what kind of house we would build. Would the dream house that I had in my mind be anything similar to the dream house in my husband’s?
To get to the bottom of this question (knowing the answer would be needed for thousands of questions in the coming months), we sat down one night to define our household’s interior design style.
Even if you are not building a house, you may also find it worthwhile to go through this exercise with your significant other (or by yourself). It can be done in an hour or two over a bottle of wine and has the potential benefits of a more harmonious and beautiful home, and fewer arguments that start with ‘what the hell is that and why have you brought it into our house?’.
I imagine it would also be an interesting exercise in the English-speaking Swiss world, with so many multicultural households.
Step 1: Define your individual design style
Without consulting, each spends some time coming up with 3-5 words or phrases that describe your personal interior design style.
Do not worry about using words that sound like they belong in Architectural Digest (mid-century American, French provincial). Instead, look for simple and/or funny ways to describe what it is you like in the look of a home, a room, or a piece of furniture (i.e quirky, blue, living rooms of Scandinavian detectives on a cold winter’s night).
Step 2: Explain yourself
The words and phrases you have chosen are most likely still up to some interpretation, so it is time to go through them and explain to each other what you mean. Here is where the old ‘a picture tells a thousand words’ principle will likely help you. So jump on the Internet and find images representing your words and phrases. (I would recommend Pinterest or Instagram, because I am 35; there is probably some incredible interior design TikTok I am not even aware exists).
Step 3: When 2 Become 1
Now it is time to try and merge these two sets of descriptors into one, an exercise whose difficulty has the potential to differ drastically from couple to couple.
Ideally, you have a couple of low-hanging fruit; if someone said modern and someone said contemporary, just flip a coin and happily add one of these words to your combined list.
Additionally, if someone has a phrase that the other person really connects with, add it to the list too (“‘5 star B&B in the Cotswolds’- that is exactly where I have always wanted to live!”).
However, there may be a few words where you are so far apart that you will need to discuss potential compromises. Mr New York Loft and Ms French Country House could potentially agree on a Parisian pied-a-terre, for example.
Also, identify rare cases where a compromise will be difficult. If someone has “everything wood” and the other person has “nothing wood”, it is admittedly going to be tough to find a middle ground.
Step 4: Take your Design Style out for a spin!
So now you have defined your household’s interior design style – in the form of a list of words and phrases, possibly accompanied by some photos. Next step is to put it into action – firstly by taking an inventory of your home and seeing whether there are some simple ways for you to remove items that seriously clash with your style, and/or add items that could seriously enhance it!
You should also keep this list on your phone to refer to when making purchases of furniture, art or homewares, and you could even test each other with some online cart-only shopping (“you honestly think that fits our style? Try again!”).
If you are really keen and/or your Netflix subscription is out, you could even use this as a springboard for collecting inspiration and ideas for a future dream house.
So What is Our Design Style?
Because I am sure there are people dying to know (hi Mum), I will let you know the results of our exercise, with a particular focus on the style we want in our new mountain home:
- Alpine, not chalet
- Scandi
- Concrete + Wood +Black
- Cosy
This list was a big help when it came to picking an architect, working on the first version of the house plans, and building up lots of Pinterest boards to help with the deluge of decisions we know are coming our way!
Some additional recommendations:
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- For design inspiration, or if you just like perving on nice houses, the Swiss magazine Raum und Wohnen is definitely worth a read, or even a subscription (because how nice is it to occasionally receive something in the mail that isn’t a bill!?)
- If, for some reason, you have a specific interest in mountain houses, I can also recommend the book “Traumhafte Häuser in den Alpen” (Dreamy Houses in the Alps). Full of stunning mountain properties, with many/most being in Switzerland.
- If you have ever been curious about using an interior designer, The Expert is a very cool concept. They have some of the absolute top interior designers on their books (mostly American and British, but also others) & allow you to book one-hour slots with them to use however you choose. I would suggest bringing them a brief of your design style and a couple of specific questions, but it could be equally fun to try and extract some gossip on their celebrity clients from them.
