Wednesday, February 11, 2009

What's your design style?

Modern? Traditional? Shabby Chic? Boho? You may already have a pretty good idea, but why not have it confirmed by the experts -- or an online quiz? Besides, you may end up surprising yourself and uncovering your untapped love of all things French country (or not...).

Via decorology, I stumbled upon Sproost, a great new online design tool (the brainchild of an interior designer, computer programmer, ex-Google guy and a businessman) that helps you figure out your style through a short quiz that asks you to rate various rooms pulled from famous shelter magazines. Not only does the quiz itself include shots of some absolutely gorgeous interiors, but the website itself is well designed and user-friendly. I turned out to be a fairly even split between "Hollywood Couture", "Modern Elegance" and "Vintage Modern" and based on Sproost's descriptions of the same (and the accompanying pictures, shown below), I think they hit the proverbial nail on the head.



These styles seem like a contemporary mish-mash of Hollywood Regency, Midcentury Modern and traditional -- and I think that's a pretty good distillation of where my taste is right now. Dave volunteered to take the test last night, too, and...well, it's a wonder we managed to buy a single piece of furniture. Behold Dave's "log cabin meets Tuscan meets 17th century French cottage" style:


From Collages

Since Dave doesn't read shelter magazines or design blogs or flip through big box catalogues, his results probably reflect preferences completely unaffected by popular designers, the newest trends or any desire to achieve a specific "look". It's just...Dave. And I think it reflects his love of the mountains (and the great outdoors generally), wine and things that look like they have a history. So in that sense, I'm not really surprised. Should we ever have enough money to buy our dream vacation home in Banff, I'll let him take the lead on decorating. Until then, the one comfort I take in his results is that perhaps this means he'll go antiquing with me now that he's discovered his preference for so-called "French eclectic".

Once the folks at Sproost have assigned you a style, the next step is to throw together a virtual mood board showing you some examples of furniture and accessories available for purchase online that exemplify your style blend. From there, you can customize one of their mood boards or even start from scratch and create you own with a selection of furniture and accessories pre-selected to match your preferences that you can further refine based on your budget. Once you've found the room of your dreams (or budget), Sproost sends you straight to the online source. While playing on their website, I found some great furniture pieces at stores I never would've considered or didn't know existed, so this is also a great way to explore design sources you wouldn't normally be exposed to.

If you get around to taking the quiz yourself, leave me a comment and let me know what your design style is. I'd love to get a feel for what everyone's are.

7 comments:

Jody Harrington said...

Thanks for this link! It's really helpful, I've already bookmarked it.

Here's my results:
50% Mountain Lodge
30% Southwestern Style
20% Traditional Country

Obviously when I took the quiz, I was thinking about the new house which is more Southwestern style.

Patch said...

My results are:
45% vintage modern
36% cottage chic
19% contemporary.

"You know you are drawn to modern furniture and interiors, and yet you don't like a space that feels cold and sterile." That is exactly right! I usually say I prefer modern, minimalist style, but I always like to warm it up with furniture that feels cozy AND looks contemporary, and fun art, and color. But NOOOO clutter!

Cottage chic luckily is not anything close to shabby chic (ICK) and is basically ultramodern but relaxed.

Interesting quiz! I'm going to make fiance take it and see what he gets. I have a feeling he'll be similar to me!!!

Anonymous said...

Hi Averill,

Melissa from Sproost here. Thank you so much for the great post on Sproost! We love it when our quiz works for people who clearly know a lot about interior design already.

We actually are considering some features where people can combine their styles to see what Sproost would recommend. Hopefully we'll have that soon!

You can follow us on Twitter if you want the latest updates (and links to great pieces that I find). Thanks again!
http://twitter.com/sproost

Averill said...

Melissa -- thanks for stopping by. I'm excited to see what you guys come up with next. You've got a great idea going!

kbacker said...

Averill, your blog is so fun! I took the quiz and I am:

50% Classic
38% Cottage Chic
12% Modern Elegance

You'll have to see if this seems right when you visit me next weekend!

Patch said...

My fiance got 100% vintage modern. Swoon!

Averill said...

P - wow! I didn't know it was possible to get a 100% of a single style. Lucky you though, vintage modern is a favorite of mine.

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