Ask Veronica: How do the homes we were raised in translate into our style of living today?

When I look around my house, traces of my childhood are everywhere. A passion for indoor/outdoor spaces is undoubtedly the result of living close to nature during the years my family lived abroad in Colombia. A love of natural light and big windows? I can draw a straight line between that childhood house with large glass panes and views to the rainforest and a desire for light-infused spaces surrounded by lush greenery. The channel-backed leather sofa in my living room? It’s a reminder of the white leather furniture I grew up with as a kid, as is my interest in natural textiles, pre-Columbian objects, and contemporary art. Later, as a teenager living in St. Louis, I remember driving down Lindell Boulevard and admiring its historic architecture and abundance of  terracotta tile roofs. I feel so fortunate to live in an old city house with those same sunbaked tiles. 

Many designers I know begin their conversations with clients by talking about the things that most deeply resonate with them, and often there’s a connection to the past. I learned this first hand when I met with my designer for the first time. She came over to the house, asked me to give her a tour and point out the items that I love and explain why. What a brilliant idea, I remember thinking to myself. 

Designer Caryn Boultinghouse, of Caryn Boultinghouse Design Studio, grew up in a variety of environments, each influenced by her mother’s house-flipping projects. She remembers how her mom loved to mix colors and patterns. When Boultinghouse began to explore her own style, she realized that experimenting with color and pattern was important to her, too. 

“When a trend emerges, you see whether you like it or not and a lot of times it’s based on how you grew up,” says Boultinghouse. 

Boultinghouse says she’s noticed how clients will return to familiar origins, in particular when they’re making a big design decision. “When people are spending money, making big investments, they’re really thinking about longevity and comfort and I do think that they go back to certain things that remind them of their youth,” Boultinghouse says. 

Marci Marsh, owner of M Marsh Interiors, says she’ll always find a way to bring in a piece of furniture, or art work, into a room, if the client has a strong attachment to it. “I never say to my clients, ‘You can’t keep that or that’s not going to work’ if it’s sentimental or means something to them. I actually encourage it, because our homes should be an example of who we are, where we’ve been, what’s important to us, and that can be anything from our past, present, or even things that we want in our future,” she says. On the other hand, clients who tell her that they want their homes to feel welcoming and approachable are those who might have grown up in a house where certain rooms were off limits and there’s a desire to not carry that on into their own family spaces. 

“I’ve had a client who had a lot of antiques from her parents, and she wanted to incorporate those, and her style was very much like her mother’s, very traditional,” says designer Kathleen Matthews, of Marcia Moore Design. “And then I’ve had a lot of people say, ‘No, I can’t do that. That was in my parents’ house and I just can’t go there.’”

Certain rooms in a house evoke more nostalgia than others. The kitchen, for one, often serves as a space where people reflect on memories with loved ones, says Matthews. “Maybe their mother or their grandmother loved to cook, so they may bring in elements of that,” she says.

How can we tap into those special memories of a childhood home and bring them into our current environments? 

“I think we already have it in us to know why we like or don’t like something,” says Marsh. “We have so many things that we look at and think, Is that my style? Is that really what I love? And I think what it comes down to is we love a lot of different things. Yet, I think there’s probably a good part of who we are that goes back to our roots.”