6 ways to make your home feel like a love letter to yourself, from interior designer Amber Guyton

Interior designer and author behind “Soulful Maximalism,” Amber Guyton, shares how color, art, comfort, and culture can transform any space.

Designing a home can be intimidating. Whether it’s a family home, an apartment, a condo, a townhome, or even just a single room, making a space feel like home can be daunting. And in an age when most moodboards and showrooms seem to lean into minimalism, interior designer and author Amber Guyton is on a mission to help people create spaces that reflect the richness of their personalities. 

“Your home should be like a love letter you write to yourself,” Guyton told theGrio. “It should feel like a warm hug. We spend so much time in our homes, and even if you don’t, even if you feel like you just have a meal and sleep there every day, when you walk in, it should feel like a reflection of you, it should feel good.” 

Through her framework, “soulful maximalism,” Guyton reimagines interior design styling in a way rooted in joy, culture, layers, and intention, creating spaces that celebrate who you are and what you love. After years of building that style through her interior design firm, Blessed Little Bungalow, Guyton explains this framework through her latest book, “Soulful Maximalism: A Colorful Guide to Living Boldly at Home.” 

“In the book, I break down those four pillars or principles of joy, culture, layers, and intention. You see my client spaces, but you also see my own home,” she said, explaining her desire to make interior design feel more accessible. “I share everything from how to mix patterns and build a gallery wall to the basics of the color wheel, in a way that feels approachable. Like, instead of saying primary colors and so on, I say ‘these are the cousins and these are the play cousins’ [when talking about colors].” 

She continued: “Interior design can be a very stuffy, overwhelming, pretentious thing, and I think that everyone deserves to love where they live, no matter how much they make, and there are little things that we can all do each day to make our home more beautiful, safe, and make us feel seen.”

Guyton sees a home as “a living organism,” and she encourages people to let it change along with them, whether through color, texture, artwork, or photos. For anyone settling into a new space or getting ready to decorate for the holidays, here is her advice for making it feel like yours.

Decorate for yourself, not the next buyer

Guyton’s first piece of advice is to stop designing around a hypothetical resale and start designing for the person who actually lives there.

“I want people to realize that their home belongs to them,” she said. “We spend so much time chasing trends and trying to upkeep the house for resale. Live in the moment. Embrace your home today.”

She added, “I’m Black. You come in my house, you know a Black person lives here. I’m not worried about what the realtor or whoever is going to say in the future that I haven’t even met yet. Why would I? It’s my house.”

Start with comfort

For anyone staring at bare white walls in a new place, Guyton says the first step has nothing to do with paint or pattern.

“As fancy as my work looks, I’m about function,” she said. “So let’s make sure your mattress is good. You need to rest. Let’s make sure that sofa is comfortable.”

Add color without the commitment

Once the basics are set, bring in color, which doesn’t have to mean something loud. Guyton points to warm neutrals like Benjamin Moore’s Revere Pewter and olive greens like Sherwin-Williams’ Basil, noting that “green is kind of a neutral.” If painting feels like too much, try the shade in drapes, a rug, or an accent chair first. 

“You can decide, ‘I really love plum, and I’ve always been terrified of painting the room plum because it feels like a huge commitment,’” she said. “So let’s put some plum drapes up, whether they’re from West Elm or Amazon.”

Layer up for the season

Guyton admits she isn’t a big holiday decorator, but she does treat colder weather as a cue to make a room feel like “more of a cocoon.” Her easiest fixes are throws and pillows, heavier drapes in place of sheer linen ones, and a plush rug in place of a thin one. For extra polish, she suggests hanging drapes from clip rings instead of threading the rod through the fabric.

“Pillows are like adult stuffed animals,” she said. “It’s the easiest thing to just go in HomeGoods or wherever and buy a pillow, and it can immediately make you smile in a space.”

Put the art on the wall

Art is the one thing Guyton says every home needs, and it doesn’t have to be expensive. Frame the piece that’s been rolled up in the closet, pick up a print, or blow up a favorite photo.

“If that is a picture you took when you were in St. Louis last summer with your besties, and you blow it up, that’s art too,” she said. “It doesn’t have to be this expensive original piece.”

In her own home, she follows one rule: “Black faces in all the spaces. No matter what room you go in, you’re gonna see a Black face, whether it’s a picture of my family or it’s artwork” or prints of artwork from Black artists like Melissa Koby, B. Robert Moore and Ronald Jackson. 

Let your home evolve

Guyton doesn’t believe in a “forever home.” Even a house you plan to stay in for decades “still should evolve with you,” she said, and the change of seasons is a natural time to switch things up, just as you would your wardrobe. Whether it’s a paint change or experimenting with wallpaper from Mitchell Black, a Black-owned wallpaper company, the “Soulful Maximalist” author says, “Just do the thing. Nothing is permanent.”