Slow Decorating: What Is It and How Do You Do It?

Slow decorating in interior design prioritises patience, quality, and individuality over passing trends. Instead of rushing to fill a space, slow decorating encourages you to thoughtfully consider your home’s purpose and feel over time. 

It involves gradually acquiring meaningful, durable pieces that hold personal significance, and even finding creative ways to repurpose existing items in your home.

By taking this intentional approach, you create an authentic, functional space that genuinely reflects your values, lifestyle, and unique style, while also being sustainable and reducing impulse buys. Not sure what your style is? Our interior style guides are the perfect starting point to help you discover your unique taste and select pieces you'll truly love.

Slow decorating is a thoughtful, intentional approach to designing your space, focusing on gradual transformation, rather than rushing to fill it all at once. It’s about curating items that truly spark joy, and allowing your home to evolve organically with your personal style and changing needs. 

This method promotes patience, encouraging you to take your time and make deliberate choices. It allows your home to grow with you, reflecting your journey and experiences, while emphasising quality, sustainability, and meaningful connections over trends. 

By collecting pieces over time, whether they are soft boucle cushions, cosy fleece throws, or groovy geometric bedding, you create a layered, authentic space that tells a story and deeply reflects your unique personality and values, rather than feeling like a showroom display. This process invites you to truly live in and appreciate your home as it develops, making each addition a conscious and cherished one.

Taking the time to settle into your space and truly get a feel for it before choosing homeware ensures you select pieces that genuinely resonate with both you and your home. Whether it's finding the perfect curtains and deciding between eyelet or pencil pleat, or choosing the ideal bedding from stripes and florals to simple plain bedding, and elevating with a faux fur throw or plush velvet cushions, living in your space allows you to make thoughtful, personalised decisions. By doing so, you avoid impulse buys driven by trends and instead create a home that reflects your individual style.

By embracing slow decorating, over time, you infuse your home with your personal style. Rather than rushing to furnish a room, give yourself the time to truly experience the space, and allow its design to naturally evolve. This intentional approach lets you make thoughtful choices, curating pieces that really resonate with you.

Slow decorating is all about crafting a narrative within your home, a space that reflects your journey, feels deeply lived-in, and evolves with you, one thoughtful layer at a time. It invites you to consider the stories behind each object, the memories they evoke, and how they contribute to the overall feeling of your interior. This approach fosters a deeper connection to your surroundings, creating a home that feels uniquely yours.

When you design your space thoughtfully, each piece becomes a chapter in your personal story. Slow decorating invites you to embrace the process, allowing your space to evolve as you do. It’s about collecting items that have meaning, choosing quality over quantity, and letting your surroundings reflect your values, memories, and daily rhythms. When you allow your home to unfold naturally, it becomes a space that feels beautiful, but personal, an ever-changing reflection of who you are.

Our interiors expert Anna encourages a thoughtful approach to decorating your space. “Take your time and choose pieces that truly reflect your personal style,” she advises. “Don’t buy something just because it’s trendy. Instead, focus on items that feel authentic to you”.

She also recommends layering items gradually and to “avoid filling a room all at once. Add pieces bit by bit, live with them, move them around, and let the space evolve naturally. Let the feel of the room guide your decisions.” This method not only ensures a harmonious design but also results in an authentic look, rather than one that feels overly staged.

Embracing slow decorating means shifting your mindset from needing a perfectly styled space to appreciating the beauty of the process. Your home isn’t something to complete on a deadline, it’s a living, breathing reflection of your life. Each object you bring in, each corner you rearrange, tells a part of your story. 

There’s no need to rush. Instead, focus on what feels right, what holds meaning, and what supports the way you truly live. When you see your home as a journey, not a destination, you open the door to a more grounded, authentic, and fulfilling way of living in your space.

We’d love to see your take on slow decorating, so don’t forget to share with us on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok. We can’t wait to see all your unique spaces!