Hmm, interesting question. There was absolutely n o style associated with any of the homes I grew up in. I haved lived with dad and mom, dad alone, dad and step mom, mom and step dad....in states from Vermont to C0nnecticut to Florida. I have seen more styles than you can shake a stick at, as my stepmom used to say.

I suppose this has allowed me to truly find my own style, but, honestly, I am still very much a product of my environment. Meaning, in our house in town I9 tried to stay honest to the character of the home an d the era in which it was built. In our house on the prairie I kept it more spare because nothing compared to th4e beauty through the win dows.

Now, though, in a boring house in a blah location I find comfort in the rustic, the antique and the arts and crafts.

Oh no.. Not at all.

I currently live in my childhood home. I've raised my children in it too.
When I moved back "home" my mom had pink walls..floral and stripe wall paper....and lots of oak heavy furniture.

Over the last 20 years, my husband and I have made it our home..but knowing that it would be my mom's again some day.

That day has come..

So this summer I will be removing our color choices..and putting on some of hers.
Thankfully she likes the main colors in the house..so I only have bedrooms to re paint.

At the same time I will be turning our newly purchased home into the colorful home we prefer.

She will return to her home in the fall to "retire".

My mother always had good taste in decorating our homes and her and my father always did 90% of all the remodeling work to any home we lived in. I actually think she has a better eye for remodeling and decorating than I do. She always made our homes warm and cozy and that is what I aspire to do but I'm usually not as successful at it as she is!! The one area where we definitely depart styles is wood choice. Her and my father have always loved oak. I can't stand it unless it is quarter sawn. Their most recent kitchen remodel contains a lot of choices I would have made except the most basic of all choices...cabinet wood. They went with oak in sort of a cinnamon color...better than the golden/honey oak they had previously but I just can't stand the oak. I have asked her opinion on my decisions in our current remodel but not the cabinet wood color...I knew from day one that I wanted natural cherry and no amount of discussion about the "personality" of oak could change my mind on that one!!

Noooo.... they were into the Spanish look in the late '70s.

But taking away stuff that was trendy at the time, they're into much more "normal" style than we're into. We like extremely modern and MCM. Go to houzz, select a room and pick "Modern" and I can browse for ages.

We're the odd ones here, not them. Perhaps I'm on the wrong side of the Atlantic.

My mother had excellent taste. When I was a child we went through the process of restoring the Victorian home my parents bought when I was 8 as a family. While I don't love everything that my mother did, some of that is just changing trends. I am definitely less traditional in style then she was. But, I really learned so much from her. We spent hours together picking colors, looking at fabric swatches and wallpaper books. I spent time walking around high end furniture stores. It helps that her brother is an interior designer. He also leans very traditional but we enjoy working together and he often feels challenged to assist me in creating a more transitional and modern look.

Our kitchen is a sort of modern craftsman with qs oak shaker cabs. This was definitely influenced by my parents, who began buying us reproduction Stickley Arts and Crafts pieces for Christmas almost as soon as we got married. DH just fell in love with the look. But I work hard to lighten it up with other items. While my mother would have gone full-out Arts and Crafts everything.

I don't think my Mom's decor often reflected her taste because in many cases it came down to what was available (small New England city) and affordable. For instance, when she and my Dad bought a home in the mid '70's that had new Mediterranean style cabinets in place with matching ornate hardware she did not change it out, even though her choice would have been something more simple. While my parents weren't frugal, it would have seemed indulgent for anyone living in our middle class neighborhood back then to change out new cabinets simply because the style didn't appeal.

My Mom was a nurse and our homes were always clean and clutter-free. But she was the most welcoming person I've ever met. When I remember my childhood homes the combined scents of Lysol and vanilla come to mind. My Mom was always cleaning and had something baking in case someone dropped by. I aspire to, but don't believe I'll ever match, her ability to make people feel at home - regardless of the decor.

My parents never had any personal style whatsoever - probably mostly because of financial stress pushing away other concerns. One builder tract home we lived in for 8 years with primer on the walls and a sheet tacked up over the dining patio doors. So by contrast I love decorating although I'm not naturally inclined to be stylish or anything. I would love to be the type of welcoming person that amck describes. I'm not sure how to achieve it but I think about hosting a lot, whether it be one friend over tea or many.

The nice thing is my parents just moved and settled, finally, into a home they both like in a town they both like. So they've been decorating their butts off! It's really great that they can finally have the space and time to discover what they like. I like a lot of their choices but I find their taste completely unpredictable. I once bought Mom curtains she actually liked and that was the major achievement of my lifetime.

This post was edited by robotropolis on Wed, Apr 23, 14 at 8:16

I would say that I am maybe a little more adventurous, but overall my style and that of my parents is very similar. Their house is currently a time capsule, but it's because they are elderly. I could move into my parents house and refresh it a little bit and replace or repair things that are wearing out, but when I was done I think it would still look like their house would if they were 50 and not 90, if that makes sense. I could live with all the current furniture. Actually I will probably be living with a fair amount of their furniture pretty soon as it is.

amck I think you said it so well! My stepmom was the same way;if finances allowed there was a decor choice but what I remember most is a house that was clean and well-maintained.

I would like to think I took after her in that regard, but I did not. I am not filthy but we do live in the country, with animals, and I have a lot of outside interests. Sometimes housework is lower on the priority list.

It is still difficult for me to not compare my home to others' pristine homes, but I try to live by the advice I would give

robotropolis

and that is to remind myself constantly that people come to see me, not my home. Dust happens, life goes on. Once I had a friend over to visit and had been in a hurry all morning to spruce up. I cut into the banana bread only to find I had baked a teaspoon into it! World class reality check right there, and we both still laugh about it.

I am even more strongly considering, now, writing a new Hostess Manifesto that includes such ghastly concepts as seeing a dust line under the piano and that mismatching flatware does not make the food taste worse or the company less stimulating.

Viva la fellowship and not our inner Martha Stewarts! Or something like that...

It's hard to make a comparison.

I grew up in the wonderful MCM home my parents built - the main interior/exterior materials were cinder block, glass, and cedar. They filled it with an eclectic mix of MCM and traditional furniture, as well as beautiful art.

I have neither their style nor their budget, and live in a lovely two story colonial with furniture that is traditional/transitional. I also have beautiful art in my home, so maybe that's the common thread.

Neither of my parents cared much about home style. Probably the only thing I've inherited from either of them is my mother's love of color.

No. We're completely different. My parents had budgetary restraints, plus they were children of the great depression, so their kitchen was minimal and practical. Laminate counters, NO range hood - my mother did a lot of cooking and canning for a large family. I'm not sure how the kitchen walls survived! Dh and I have granite counters, lots of cupboard space - my mother would be in awe of this place. We didn't have a huge budget when we built this, but we wanted it to be durable and eventually have good resale value.

Not really, although I have my parents' 1950-ish coffee table. The house I grew up in was built by my dad, MCM and mostly glass, and it was furnished with nice things. My parents had a bigger budget than I ever had. I'm more a collector of things I like and I expect them all to get along. I think my style was a bit of a disappointment to my mom, but I generally insisted on my own path anyway.

My coffee table notwithstanding, I'm not a fan of total MCM, even when I was growing up in its midst and it was just the fashion of the day.

I LOVE my artist mother's decorating style. She's always been a "use what you have" decorator and never had the budget to buy anything new. But she has the laser eye for thrifting. I took photos of her Cape Cod summer home. The home is in disrepair, but everywhere there is something that delights the eye. Like some vintage thin quilts made from men's suiting - they are so beautiful. People feel at home in her spaces because nothing is precious and everything is already "broken in". Her spaces respect the natural light, and they are warm and cozy and practical. She is always tweaking and can turn a horrible little basement room into a delightful guest room that makes you smile - in hours.

Feisty I think I would like your mom!

For one thing, I don't have a pink kitchen with pink appliances and cabinets. LOL (It sure was *fun* though!)

I grew up with traditional furniture in a Georgian Colonial home. We often visited my mother's native Rhode Island, with all of its' Colonial architecture and antiques from England.

A great aunt (by marriage) was an interior decorator, and I loved leafing through all her magazines. I chose modern limed oak bedroom furniture for my 15th birthday. (And turquoise carpeting.)

Our first apartment as a married couple had bright red carpeting and white walls, drapes, furniture -- with a bit of black accent.

We lived in a 1950's ranch for thirty years, which I furnished with an eclectic mix -- some Asian influences. I sold and gave away almost all of that when we built a new, traditional home in 2001. Why, I even have *polished brass* fixtures and Baldwin's 'Edinburgh' door levers. There's 'Reed and Ribbon' in the crown molding. I've gone back to my 'roots'.

I can't say that my parents ever really had "a style". They were pushed financially (had more kids than they could afford), and our house was furnished with hand-me-downs, second hand things, and whatever was cheapest. As someone else said, in the 70s people didn't change things just because something newer had come along (even people who weren't financially strapped like my parents). The term "dated" didn't exist yet.

I definitely have a good dose of that frugality in my personality. I want a comfortable, functional home, but sometimes where others see a splurge, I see overdone, overkill, too much or downright wasteful.

I also tend to wait until I am SURE of what I want before I buy. I'll put up with an old, lackluster piece of furniture . . . until I KNOW exactly what I want, and then I'm willing to pay for it.

So many great stories! Amck and fiesty, your moms sound like absolute gems.
MrsPete- I have definitely held on to that frugality as well. That's why, as much as I want that SS French door refrigerator, it will just have to wait until my standard bisque top freezer dies.

Yes and no! I didn't notice very much what my mom's style was when I was growing up, and anyway, the first house I actually lived in (in high school) was constantly undergoing renovation until it was "done," which is when she had to move. It was hideously ugly when we moved in at first, that is for sure.

However, I find that I have sort of caught up with her style. That is, at 42, I find myself liking what she did at around age 40, so I guess my style is like hers. I have inherited the beautiful rugs she had at the time, and I love them. But now she is much wealthier than when I grew up, and her style is much "fancier." Everything in her condo, which is bigger than our house, is tailored and custom made and expensive, so it seems to me. She has some pieces that I think are beautiful but just wouldn't fit in our Cape Cod style house, neither physically nor aesthetically. I plan never to leave this house, and doubt I will be as wealthy as she is now, so I doubt I will "catch up" to her current style even when I am the age she currently is.

BUT, in terms of kitchen remodeling, our styles are very similar. I got a ton of fantastic ideas from her current kitchen, especially DRAWERS, soft-close, under-cabinet lighting, lots of light.

My parents have more of a county style, but they live in a log cabin. It kinda goes with the style of the house itself. They keep it updated though, so it's very nice. It reminds me of a very nice cabin in the mountains that your would rent on vacation.

My/our style is more contemporary. Our house is only 8 years old, so it fits the style of our house as well. I like minimal decor and wide open spaces. I'm sure as I get older and my kids get older we will accumulate more stuff & my minimal decor will be added to.

With that being said we both have great kitchens!! My inlaws also have an awesome kitchen!! They have a beach house, so their house is a mix of beach chic & contemporary.

My parents didn't have much money when I was growing up - though they did go through a phase when my mom was collecting oak antique furniture (not A&C, some veneer, most not good quality, either poorly refinished or she used Homer Formsby to DIY) and my dad collected old farm implements. Funny, that was after they moved out of the modern house (with cathedral ceilings and shag carpeting) when the gas station failed, into a weird ranch style home with a large BR taking up half the upstairs (that was mine and my sister's). A remnant of red shag carpeting with no padding under was laid over the oak floor in the LR, my mom wallpapered the long wall in that room in a red paper with gold medallions that's still there, painted the trim (and rest of the walls) in a chocolate brown glossy paint. The shag rug is gone, though they haven't refinished the floor yet (did the family room in back of the house, and pulled up the gold shag in the small BR off of it).

My mom did replace the orange formica counters that were there when we moved in the 70's with granite 7 years ago, but kept the built-on-site dark wood cabinets and "wrought iron" HW. I don't care for the fake Tiffany lighting she's hung over the peninsula and sink. The vinyl flooring she put down instead of the (not shag) carpet looks good in the kitchen, but I don't care for the color of the remnant she had laid in the bathroom - but it's better than the carpet that was in there and the peel-and-stick vinyl tile she picked out and I installed 16 yrs ago.

I don't really have a style and my house (and decorating) has been in progress for 7 years, but I think the neutral palette (I do have wood cabinets, but they're light oak, not dark) and tailored roman shades I have put in are a backlash against my mom's over-the-top mix of furniture, wallpaper, window treatments and artwork.

I do like solid wood and antiques, but prefer A&C or Shaker styles, and have so much clutter from living (DD's schoolwork, board games, books, magazines, etc.) that I don't look for knickknacks to put on horizontal surfaces.

Then again, my mom's kitchen counters are clear, while mine have various school projects, seed packets, canning jars, markers, cell phones, chargers, bags of the kids' Easter candy etc. piled up in corners and on the breakfast bar. I don't have a junk drawer, and the drawer for DD's crayons and such is overflowing. I think it will be easier to declutter as she gets older and isn't bringing home paper-towel-roll Kachina dolls and nutcrackers, etc. from school.

I do wish I had the large kitchen with the bat-wing pantry cabinet and the oak floors they have throughout their house though.

This is an actual conversation between me and my mother just before Thanksgiving dinner (just a month after moving into the new house):

Me: "So, the sunroom will be this pale seafoam green (shows sample chip) and I'll be hanging these two paintings (points to two paintings leaning against a nearby wall) in here also."

Mom: "I wouldn't do that at all. I don't like that color. The paintings should go in that front room. Why did you get that color couch for the sunroom? I wouldn't have done that, I would have done something else. Maybe denim. You have dogs, you know."

Me: "Well, the couch is covered in Sunbrella, so I'm not worried about the dogs. And you don't have to live here, but I do. Would you like a scotch? Boy, I sure would!"

Mom: "Oh, of course! Just remember, not much ice. And put a splash of water in it for me. I get heartburn, ya know..."

I love my mother dearly. I really do :) Our tastes are not even remotely similar. I live around the way from the beach and a block from the ICW in a brick Greek Revival and my mother thinks that I should decorate everything in driftwood, shells and fish motifs. Um, no.

My parent's taste didn't really coincide, I would have to say that my Dad deferred to my Mom in most things, but he never did give up most of his 1950"s Scandinavian pieces -- just moved them to his office, or passed them on to the older kids when they set up housekeeping. I still have the pleated-front bedroom set (although I didn't really inherit his taste for that style). Mom was at first 1960's colonial revival, then federal (inspired by a visit to Mt. Vernon) then more formal queen Anne-ish in her latter decades. Her style shift suited the houses. I don't really share a love for the first or last either! She would go for pops of bold color in a more neutral room, though, and I am the same way.

I love reading about everyone's parents here -- what a great thread!

My guess is that your tastes, like theirs, are informed by the generation you grew up in and the environment your parents provided for you.

I grew up in the house I now live in and I marvel every day at my mother's good taste, even as I tear out cabinets, lift floors, and remove rough hewn wood paneling. It is a beautiful house, some of it dated, some of it thoroughly current. She was an amazing gardener and loved the tree trunk look of the walls in the family room and the built-ins around the stone fireplace. I can't take that much brown anywhere, so I've removed most of it, but I've left some on the exterior walls as sort of an homage to her.

Here's what it looks like next to my hydrangeas.

Hswsc, lol! Sometimes my gem of a mother drives me to drink too ;) . Suddenly I take up the habit of having sherry before dinner.

Great question!

For me, there are similarities and differences. When I designed cabinets for my bedroom, I surprised the cabinetmaker because I wanted framed with inset/partial overlay, which isn't seen much now. That's where 1/8" of the door is overlay and the rest is inset (cut down with a router or something). Just like my father would have made them. :)

I like complex secondary colors for the walls, neutral floors, tinted ceilings, just like my mother. But I like layered patterns, and lots of color, whereas she would choose a more rigorous colorscheme and monochrome patterns and stick to it. She has rosewood, which I love, but I have a bigger variety of woods.

The decor of my kitchen mostly looks very different. It was functional things that I copied assiduously. But she does have brass knobs with abalone inlay. I was inspired by a big brass doorpull I remembered from the 1960's, but my appliance pulls are brass finished and the material that looked best with my other finishes for the inlay was natural abalone! There's a lot about my kitchen that baffles my mother, but the "matching" pulls make me laugh and laugh. :)

I think you can see her influence in my style, without it being the same.

I forgot about the other style at home - the mess.

The grandma on one side was a hoarder, basically anything and everything except for trash. She managed an apartment complex with a lot of college students so the inaccessible bedrooms and storage rooms were a collection of trends from the '60s to the late '90s. Some of the stuff made its way to...

My parents, who were also not very good at getting rid of things either but were not hoarders by any means. Stuff filled the garage, except for the trail to get out the garage door and the other trail to get to the washer and dryer. Cleanup was once or twice a year indoors and past a certain age it was not exactly ok for friends to come over because I think my mom was a bit embarrassed. And that ties into...

Us, who are into having a minimal amount of stuff and keeping the place clean because that's what feels welcoming. It's funny how that sort of things works, and how it doesn't apply to my brother since cleaning takes away from xBox/PS4 time. We're all different I guess.

hsw_sc - at least you both like Scotch! (I'm not a fan, neither are my parents, but DH is)

I think my mom has great decorating taste. I often ask her opinion on those things. My parents' current kitchen is not my style (90s oak that was preexisting when they bought a couple of years ago) but it's still a very nice kitchen. My dad? He has no clue, ha.

Both my parents were interested in interior design, and my mom had some real talent, I think. Always on a tight budget, she decorated the house I grew up in in a clean modern style, and the small 200 year old Bucks County farm house (the weekend house) in an English Country style. Both houses were beautiful and easy to live in.

When she and my dad moved to a continuing care retirement community, she did a wonderful job personalizing the bland new apartment: crisp white built-in bookcases, walls painted a deep slate blue. This was a problem in later years, after she died, because my dad refused to move to a much-needed assisted living unit. His reason was "Mom made this beautiful apartment for me, and I want to live here".

justmakeit -- Your father's sentiment says so much -- about marriage, family, home, and love.

Wow. What thoughts!
My mom just passed in August, so this was a memory lane walk.

My parents built their home in 1962 (or 64, I can't remember) and it was a very unfashionable, French Provincial home. A mansion in our two stoplight, 1 blinker Midwestern town.

My mom wasn't afraid of color. Slate blue metal kitchen cabinets. Huh? Sleek, though, without a hint of '50s. The linoleum floor was mild, but in the 70s, she put in .... SHAG. In the KITCHEN!

Her decorating style I know now was avant garde and esoteric, somewhat traditional with beautiful wood furniture, but there was Queen Anne in it along with long, creamy shag carpeting in the family room, where my dad would rake it. (Can you say, "OCD?") He didn't care as long as he could put his feet up and watch the boob tube. Coffered ceilings there.

The den had wormwood paneling, which to this day remains gorgeous (with the new owners as of 1980) and cozy. She had pocket doors -- did I get that from her?

She owned an art gallery in E. Lansing, which was quite well known in the local art community, so we had unusual sculpture and paintings in and out of our home. A nude in our slate-floored foyer. (GASP! you have KIDS!)

Our condo in upper MI was also done with the builder's options, which turned out to be 70's chrome, white leather, orange carpet, etc. I still have the Fitz & Floyd Total Color Cinnabar china she bought.

When she moved to FLA, it was beachy, with her beautiful Queen Anne furniture pieces, some modern, tile floors, bright colors mixed with soft, and her artwork.

She moved back to MI about 10 years ago, and those beloved piece came back with her. Her little condo in E. Lansing, where she died, was elegant, uncluttered, and serene.

I'm inheriting many of her Queen Anne and Asian pieces, including some of the artwork. My sisters inherited her love of color and are taking some of the bigger, bolder pieces. They're both tall and blonde, where as I'm short and troll-like. I'm getting the tiny furniture and they the bigger.

I've already got her Queen Settee, via a sister, who covered it in Raspberry fabric, when in her (somewhat) periwinkle home. Oh, boy.

My youngest sister, who lives a few doors down from her, is getting what I'd consider "décor" pieces. She loves to redesign her home, despite messing with four children.

So yes, I've evolved from her cast-offs (where I recreated the den evidently in one home) to my own need for sleek furniture in my Shaker and Arts 'n Crafts period. I now find I'm DONE with dark wood and sparse lines. Clean is good, but I find myself moving towards some of the QA and Louis the xxxxxxx furnitures. Mom lives on.

In artwork, Asian and curvy, she lives in me and my home.
In color, she lives with my sister.
In crazy yet functional, she lives with my baby sister.

But I will never have lime green, bird wall paper with slate colored metal kitchen cabinets and a bright purple & gold bathroom with turquoise fixtures. Ok, she admits the latter was "probably" a mistake, but what the heck! ?!

CEFreeman- I'm trying to picture that bathroom, crazy!
At least she wasn't afraid to experiment and sounds like she had lots of fun with it!

My Mom and Dad have been gone now for over 10 years, and I miss their advice. They loved to go antiquing and most of our family home, except for the soft furnishings were either antiques from my mother's house or from their antique excursions. It was a very comfortable home, but my mother was more formal than I will ever be. My Dad was an artist and had lots of artist friends so their walls were covered with known artists' work. I have some of them on my walls now.
So I certainly got a great background in learning about antiques (looking at drawers, legs etc) and I have a love for original artwork thanks to both of them.
When we had a young family and no money to speak of, Mom and Dad would go on excursions for us and bring us home a table here, a lamp there and somebody's pottery bowl. I loved it and I miss it. Now days I am getting rid of some of the antiques, but am keeping a few well loved items for our kids. Wish they were here to see what we have done in the last 10 years to our house. I would hope they would have approved. (Maybe not the money we have spent! lol)