Have you ever wondered why your room doesn’t look like the ones in your favorite magazine? No matter how much you decorate, there’s still something missing. And it’s not fair! You’ve followed all the rules: You have nice furniture. You’ve taken a chance on a new wall color you saw on Pinterest. You’ve even tried arranging your books by color. Then why does everything still feel jumbled, disorganized, and, well, flat?
Here’s something you should know: The secret sauce behind those gorgeous rooms in the magazines is the prop stylist, who comes in after everything is set up and tweaks each piece of furniture, accessory, and throw pillow, so that when the camera captures the shot, everything makes sense to the reader’s eye.
And here’s what that means: You too can have a home that’s ready for a magazine shoot, even if Instagram is the actual destination for your pictures. This doesn’t take much money, nor does it take a lot of time. And it doesn’t require years of art school or an expensive design course on the rules of balance and scale. All you need are a stylist’s secrets, and that’s exactly what this book is going to give you.
First, you should know that there are no hard-and-fast rules to styling your home—only tons of tricks and tips. Once you try out a few and get the hang of them, everything becomes simpler—shopping becomes less stressful, redecorating becomes fun, entertaining is all of a sudden second nature. Life gets easier. Your house will begin to match your personality, and you can finally be that person who exclaims to impressed guests, “Oh, that old thing? I just found it at the flea market and plopped it down right there.” Stick with me, and you’ll gain the confidence to make anything you touch look amazing.
I started my career as a prop stylist who would run back and forth from a photo shoot to the prop house in order to take rooms from eh to amazing. Sound exhausting? I loved it. I still love it! When I landed a gig as host of HGTV’s Secrets from a Stylist, my first step in helping homeowners tailor their rooms to their style was to find out what details they loved (a handbag, a pattern on a pillow). During the process, I realized how styling someone’s favorite details in a room is a more accessible approach than trying to decorate it from top to bottom. I mean, who doesn’t start with the fun things first, like eating dessert before dinner?
Stylists and interior designers approach rooms very differently. Interior designers are more methodical and often design their clients’ homes over a long period of time. They might knock down a wall to open up the kitchen, working closely with an architect to make any structural changes. Dozens of conversations take place before decisions are made so that the client is happy in her new home. We stylists, on the other hand, forgo a drawn-out plan in order to jump right in. We skip the design-professionals-only showrooms and do the shopping ourselves. We follow our noses to unexpected finds at the flea market or beautiful flowers at the farmers’ market. You might think we’re decorators—except we are more inclined to work with what we’ve got, obsessing over a room’s details and tweaking them in order to bring the room to life.
We might wrap a blanket around a sofa seat rather than reupholstering it, or hang burlap in a window rather than a proper curtain because it matches the rustic vibe we’re going for in the room. We’ll style natural details like live branches in a vase, books left open, a pair of heels kicked off near a bench, so that it feels like someone actually lives there. “Feels” is key here—stylists care more about how a room feels than what the atmosphere is and if it looks like cool people actually live there. But we also care about how a room functions, especially if it’s a space you use every day.
By approaching a room from a stylist’s point of view, you free yourself from any anxiety or fear about getting anything wrong. You put on your favorite music and just start playing around—arranging, stacking, and moving things from one surface to another until it all looks right to your eye … or until it looks curated in a way you think guests would find interesting. You give yourself time to consider whether you should replace your coffee table. You fell in love with it at some point, right? Maybe a simple refresh is all it needs: replacing the stacks of mail and magazines with a decorative box, a pretty tray, and some art books. You won’t really know what works until you can step back and take stock of what you already have.
Then as your vignettes come together and your room takes on a cohesive look, it’ll finally feel decorated. Don’t be surprised if you find yourself opening the door a little wider when neighbors show up at your doorstep. You might even send out the invites for that dinner party you’ve been putting off—any excuse to get peeps in your place and show it off.
The best way to style your room is to have an idea of what you’re going for. And how do you know what you want? You steal. Grab ideas from anywhere—magazines, TV, or books, and try them out in your space. Luckily, you’ve come to the right place.
It probably won’t surprise you to hear that styling is one of my favorite things to do, and my biggest goal with this book is to help deconstruct the process for you. Figuring out what style or mix of styles you are is the foundation to arranging a room where you want to spend all of your time, but that’s only the beginning. Then you have to know how to layer all your stuff so that it looks both effortless and yet cohesive.
In The Stylist’s Toolkit, you’ll take a fun quiz and put a name to your style so you can be more confident when shopping and have an objective for knowing what kind of room you’ll like. In Chapter 2, you’ll learn the lingo we stylists use on set (including “vignette,” “contrast,” and “balance”) and how those terms apply to styling a room. By then, I know you’ll be thinking, Okay, Emily, when do we actually start getting our hands dirty?, so Chapter 3 walks you through styling a room from start to finish in ten oh-so-easy steps.
Sound like fun? Well, the second part has even more goodies awaiting you. Room by room, the gorgeous photos and quick takeaways will make your mouth water and get your styling wheels turning. Here I’ve actually teased out the thinking process behind every vase, folded throw, and patterned pillow. Look for the Photo Tips throughout that give you specific ideas for capturing a vignette or room shot on camera (for instance, knowing the details that’ll bring touches of life to your space). Lastly, my Stylist’s Notebook compiles insider info on shopping at a flea market, a list of my go- to paint colors, some DIY tips, and all of my favorite resources into one so you can shop just like I do.
My mantra is “Style and play, every day,” and I hope you’ll start to feel comfortable doing so in your own place. Not only will you end up with a gorgeous home that’s the envy of all of your friends, but you’ll also have a place that is perfectly suited to your style. (Just don’t be surprised if you never want to leave.)
