When we talk about how to add personality to your home, I think we first need to look at why so many of our homes have lost it in the first place. I recently spoke about this topic at the Melbourne Home Show.

For the past 30 years, we’ve been told to keep our homes safe.

Keep it neutral. Keep it simple. Think about resale. Don’t choose anything too personal because the next person might not like it.

And somewhere along the way, we started designing our homes for people who don’t even live in them. I call it “living in default mode”.

You know the house. White walls, white kitchen, white fleck stone, chrome tapware, timber floors. Maybe a grey or beige sofa. Everything works. Everything matches. Nothing is necessarily wrong. There’s also very little that tells you who lives there.

So if you’re wondering how to add personality to your home, perhaps the first step isn’t adding anything at all. It’s asking why you’ve made the choices you already have.

But, when did resale become the priority?

I’ve worked in interior design for more than 20 years (I know, it’s a long time!) and the conversation around resale has always been there.

We renovate kitchens and bathrooms that we could live with for the next 10 or 15 years, yet one of the first questions is often, “will someone else like this when we sell?” But what about the decade you’re going to spend living with it?

I understand designing for resale when you’re actually preparing a property for market. That’s different. But if this is your home, perhaps we need to stop giving the imaginary next owner quite so much power. Because they’re not the ones making coffee in your kitchen every morning. You are!

Take the white kitchen

There’s nothing technically wrong with the white kitchen pictured here. It works. It’s clean. It’s neutral. It probably wouldn’t stop anyone from buying the house.

White cabinetry. White benchtop. Simple handles. Basic splashback. Standard appliances. Every decision makes sense. But none of it tells me anything about the person who lives there. And that, for me, is the difference between a house that has simply been finished and one that feels like home.

The issue isn’t that the kitchen is white. The issue is whether you actually wanted a white kitchen in the first place. I’ve spoken before about why white doesn’t automatically make a room look bigger and why I see white as a starting point rather than the finished artwork. The same thinking applies here. White isn’t the problem. Choosing it by default is.

You bought someone else’s house

Most apartments and new-build homes play it safe with colour and materials because they need to appeal to as many potential buyers as possible. We’ve become so used to seeing this version of a finished home that somewhere along the way, safe became our idea of good design.

We move in with all the intention of making it our own. But life happens. The white walls stay. The kitchen stays. The lights stay. We buy a few pieces of furniture to fill the gaps. Like placing stickers on a white piece of paper but we don’t call that art. Five years later, we’re still living amongst somebody else’s choices.

Your home doesn’t need to be completely renovated the moment you get the keys. In fact, living in it for a while can teach you a lot about what actually needs to change. But if you’re wondering how to add personality to your home, at some point you need to stop living with somebody else’s decisions and start making your own.

How to add personality to your home without making it shout

I love colour. I use a lot of it in my work. But adding personality doesn’t mean choosing the loudest colour in the paint deck or making every surface compete for attention. It starts much earlier than that.

When I’m designing a home, we’re thinking about the layout, custom joinery, materials, lighting, appliances, furniture, decoration and colour as one complete idea. Maybe that leads us to greens, or blues maybe you love dusky nude cabinetry. Perhaps it’s warm timber with an incredible natural stone. Maybe there’s a colour you’ve always loved that becomes the starting point for the entire room.

The point isn’t to make it colourful for the sake of being colourful. It’s to make decisions that belong to you and your home, rather than automatically reaching for the safest option. That’s where personality comes from. Not from adding something at the end. It should be there from the beginning.

So, who are you designing for?

This is a question I come back to with my clients. If you genuinely love white, use white. If you love beige, use beige. There is absolutely nothing wrong with either. But if you’ve chosen them because they’re safe, because you’re worried you’ll get something else wrong or because an imaginary future buyer might prefer them, I’d question it.

Good interior design isn’t about adding colour for the sake of colour. It’s about understanding your home, how you live in it and how you want to feel when you walk through the front door. Sometimes that means making a bolder decision. Sometimes it means leaving something alone. The important part is that we’ve actually made the decision.

Because the homes I find most interesting aren’t necessarily the biggest, most expensive or most colourful. They’re the ones where you walk through the door and immediately understand something about the people who live there. Their books. Their art. Their travels. Their family. Their favourite colour. The way they entertain. The things they’ve kept. Those are the layers that slowly turn a house into a home.

So take another look around yours. Do you love the choices surrounding you? Or have you simply been living with the defaults?

Ready to make your house feel more like your home?

If you’re ready to renovate and want to create a home that feels like yours from the beginning, that’s where I can help.

At Nikki Weedon Interiors, I design colour-led interiors for Melbourne homes, from the initial concept and spatial planning through to materials, finishes, custom joinery, furniture and the final layers.

Book a discovery call, tell me about your interior design journey and let’s start with what you want your home to be.