Since I’m hoping to buy a house in the next few months and since I got rid of a lot of my stuff before moving, so I’ll be starting with a clean slate, I’ve been checking books on home decor/interior design out of the library to get ideas. I’ve found a couple of books about decor for a cozy home. That’s what I want to create, so I checked them out.

Given what I’m currently writing, it’s no surprise that the idea of cozy appeals to me. I have a sense of how I want my home to feel, but not a great visual for what that should look like. Thus the decor books. I want to see pictures to see if any of them fit what I have in mind. What does cozy look like to me?

And it seems I’m on a very different wavelength from these authors. Both books turned out to be by “influencers” (I really hate that concept) who had blogs about their homes, so the books were only about their homes. There weren’t a lot of pictures of a variety of homes to show how design principles work. There were just pictures of their homes.

Weirdly, their idea of “cozy” involves lots of white. White slipcovers on the furniture, white walls, exposed brick painted white, white wood, etc. I do like white walls, and my comforter cover on my bed is white with blue embroidery around the edges, but the amount of white in those homes was anything but cozy to me. It looked cold. They both talked about having a lot of natural light, but I tend to think of cozy in dark terms, with candles and lamps to create a glow. Some sunlight during the day is okay, but I don’t like a lot of harsh direct light.

One of the books had some good advice about starting a room with a blank slate, then getting the sofa in the position you want it first. After that, position any other seating, then the horizontal surfaces (tables). Then choose and position rugs, then drapes, lamps, and then art and accessories. That made sense. However, in all her pictures, I liked the “don’t” pictures better than the “do” pictures. She said that it’s better to have one big statement piece than a bunch of smaller pieces, and while I agree in not liking a cluttered look with a ton of stuff, it all depends on what the big piece is.

Over her sofa, the “don’t” picture (I guess it was a “before” from before she came up with her new design philosophy) had a gallery wall of a number of smaller prints. The “do” was a giant rack of antlers looming over the sofa. If you were sitting on the sofa and looked up, the prongs of the antlers would be right over your head. The “don’t” for the fireplace mantel was a couple of botanic prints, some small baskets, and some candlesticks. Not entirely my taste, but it didn’t look too busy to be restful. The “do” picture had a big, black sign with the word “Relax” on it in white, scrolling script (what I think of as the “live, laugh, love” font). This was on a white brick (or painted white) fireplace.

Between the giant rack of antlers and the huge black sign ordering me to relax, I’d have to flee that room. Nothing about it was what I’d consider cozy. It was oppressive, especially the “Relax” sign, which would have the effect on me of someone telling me to calm down during a fight. I wouldn’t be able to relax in that room. The antlers might have worked in a more rustic setting with darker colors, and possibly over the fireplace rather than over the sofa, but in a stark white room the look was like something out of Scandinavian horror.

I don’t have a ton of decorative accessories. Most of what I have is stuff I either got as a gift or bought as a souvenir when I traveled. I have a lot of interesting candle-related things, like lanterns, candlesticks, or a candle garden. I have framed pictures of family or places I’ve visited. I mostly fill my walls with bookcases, but the artwork I have is watercolor prints of places I’ve visited. Everything I have means something to me.

I’ll have to see what other books the library has, especially if I drive to the library. I usually walk, and I have to go up a steep hill to get home, so I’ve been choosing the smaller books. A lot of the interior design books are too big for my backpack or for the small collapsible shopping bag I carry with me if I’m running errands around downtown before going to the library. I’ll want to drive up the hill with some of the decor books. I hope they have something written by a real interior decorator with training rather than by self-taught bloggers, especially those who think huge racks of antlers on stark white walls are “cozy.”

My decorating style would probably best be described as “eccentric professor’s study.” I like cushy chairs with soft upholstery, lots of books, dark wood, plenty of soft throws, pillows, and blankets on the chairs/sofa, an antique-looking rug on wood floors. I even have a mini suit of armor. I’ll need to get a rug and a sofa, and I’ll eventually want to replace my wood furniture. Everything except the big bookcases was Bombay Company stuff that I put together myself. I’ll be starting from scratch for my office. I’ve got a chair that I may or may not end up keeping, but I need a desk, bookcases, and any other office furniture, and I have no idea what look I want, whether bright and airy with light-colored furniture and white bookcases that blend with the walls or keeping with the eccentric professor’s study in a castle look from my living room.

But first I have to find a house. There’s nothing on the market right now. I have to hope something will come up between now and May.