Can Interior Design be Self-Taught?
The Arnold House
Can Interior Design be Self-taught? Yes.
I am here to help you answer this question. And admittedly it’s not as straight forward as you may want to hear. Interior design, in my words as I know it, is the intentional pulling together of furniture, finishes, and finishing details to create a cohesive and pleasing interior space. This looks different to everyone!
To me, this is calming, neutral, soft and textural finishes, mixed with woods, metals and art. It’s blending old and new, antiques and modern lines. It’s finishing each space to maximize its natural or intended function.
To someone else, it may be bold colours or patterns, an ultra-clean aesthetic, or to another it may be rustic country charm, or preserving old-world details and finishing. Scandinavian modern, heritage charm, mid-century modern, or traditional farmhouse chic. The list goes on… with innumerable variations and design styles. Each as unique as we are individual!
This gets me back to my thoughts on why I believe anyone can take up interior design as a hobby, or past time. Let me start by taking you through my personal journey. I am a professional interior designer – I attended university and earned a degree in interior design. I followed a fairly traditional path of working in design firms on interior design projects as part of larger project teams.
I would say I followed the traditional professional route to becoming an interior designer, and that suited my strengths, especially as a young adult. You see, I am a creative, visual, arts-and-crafty kind of person, while also being a very linear thinker. My education in interior design taught me to harness the skills of scale, proportion, balance and details with my natural ability to visualize space.
But it wasn’t until I was actively practising my real-world hobby of furnishing and renovating my own homes, that I learned my superpower – seeing potential in some of the most hard-to-visualize places and being willing to take on the challenge.
Let’s look at examples of a few the most common household names in the industry:
Shea McGee (McGee & Co.) went to school earning a degree in public relations, not interior design; she later took some courses in interior design at a local college as she built her personal design brand McGee & Co. (Country Living.com).
Joanna Gaines (Fixer Upper, Magnolia Network, Magnolia Journal) graduated from Baylor University in Waco, Texas with a degree in communications, her interior design expertise growing from a passion and past-time of flipping homes with her husband Chip Gaines (wikipedia.com).
Alison Victoria (Alison Victoria Interiors, Windy City Rehab) graduated from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas with a degree in Interior Architecture and immediately began working for a boutique interior design firm, starting her own firm Alison Victoria Interiors only a few years later.
Sarah Richardson (Sarah Richardson Design Inc.) received a degree in Visual Arts from the University of Western Ontario in Canada and started in TV behind the scenes as a prop designer and later made the move into hosting her fist of many TV series, all while growing her successful interior design practice, Sarah Richardson Design Inc.
Although I became an interior designer through a traditional university program and career path, it was later on that I began to work on my own homes and projects, where most of my interior design aesthetic was self-taught. This is where I learned the vast majority of what I share with you here at Victorious Interiors.
So if you want to know my opinion, the answer is yes, interior design, especially for yourself, can be a hobby. With the right inspiration, a willingness to try, and an opportunity to practice, anyone can learn to interior design their own space into a space they love coming home to and are proud of.
“I believe that if you are true to expressing yourself, coupled with the right amount of discipline and routine, your space can reflect your personality, and you can turn your home into your haven.”
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