Let’s talk about the Benjamin Button–ization of our style. Maybe it was a comment one of you made recently, or a quiet moment of looking around our house, but lately we’ve noticed our style moving in a younger direction. Maybe it’s a mid-life design crisis, or maybe it’s simply the latest stage of our constantly evolving sensibility (read: indecisiveness). Either way, it feels like a deliberate softening of formality and an embrace of playful, colorful choices — and we wanted to share what that shift looks like in our home to see whether anyone else has noticed a similar trend in their own decorating journey.
STAGE 1: “Wait, you mean I can paint these walls whatever color I want???”
That moment usually comes when longtime renters finally become homeowners. After years of white walls and temporary furnishings, the freedom to choose colors, finishes, and layouts is intoxicating. For us, the early days after closing back in 2006 were full of exuberant experimentation: bold paint choices, mismatched apartment-era furniture filling larger rooms, and a general sense of trying everything at least once. The house became a kaleidoscope of personality while we learned what worked at full scale, and this stage is an important part of discovering your own style language.
STAGE 2: “Okay, let’s be serious now. We’re homeowners. That means we’re, like, adults.”
At some point we pivoted toward a more mature aesthetic. For us, this change coincided with starting the blog and paying closer attention to how rooms functioned and how materials and furniture choices held up over time. We wanted a home that felt lived-in but refined: cleaner palettes, more intentional furniture purchases, and thoughtful renovation choices to improve how we actually use our spaces. That move toward sophistication helped rooms feel cohesive and practical, and it’s the phase that many readers recognize from our more familiar room reveals.
STAGE 3: “Wait a second — why are we in a rush to turn into stodgy neutral-loving ‘grown ups’?”
That question marked the start of a reverse-aging moment in our decorating: a Benjamin Button–style retreat from rigid adulthood toward something lighter and more joyful. The arrival of our daughter Clara nudged that change into the open. Designing her nursery opened the door to color, pattern, and whimsy in ways we hadn’t embraced since those early homeowner days. What began as a playful children’s room gradually influenced adjacent spaces, proving that bright, cheerful touches can coexist with mature design choices.
We didn’t plan for the nursery to rewrite our whole aesthetic, but it did. Little moments of fun — a quirky set of pig-shaped hooks in the office, a colorful banner we made for a BabyCenter post that ended up cheering up our living room fireplace, or the bold pattern of the Clara rug in our den — reminded us that a home can be both grown-up and delightfully unexpected.
This shift doesn’t mean we’ll start turning bedrooms into ball pits or paint kitchen ceilings neon. It’s more measured: a willingness to loosen up, add color, and incorporate playful patterns where they make sense. The balance we’re after now blends the durability and function of our adult choices with the visual joy and spontaneity that initially drew us to decorating in the first place.
Recognizing these phases — the eager experimentation, the sober refinement, and the later, more liberated playfulness — can be reassuring. Home style rarely follows a straight line. It evolves with changes in life: moving into your first place, marrying, becoming a parent, changing careers, or simply gaining confidence in your taste. Each stage leaves traces in the rooms you live in, and that layered history is part of what makes a house feel truly like home.
So: anyone else noticing a new phase in their decorating? Has your style flipped or flopped after a big life change — getting your own place, getting married, having a baby, switching jobs, or something else? Share what prompted your latest decorating evolution and which elements you kept from previous phases. We’d love to hear how your home has grown up, then loosened up, over time.