Jeremiah Brent's Secret To Home Decor Is Less About Trends & More About Function

Jeremiah Brent is filled with wise design advice, from choosing artwork for your home to the best way to decorate with chrome and metallic. So when this HGTV designer talks, his fans listen. However, when it comes to his secret on designing a space so it looks curated and interesting, it has less to do with design theory and following the latest trends and more to do with displaying nostalgic items and tapping into your unique personality. 

During a home tour of his and Nate Berkus' media room on Instagram, the designer shared that everything in the space was linked to a memory. "Everything in this space has a story," he said in the reel. And the reason it came together so well was that it was filled with sentimental pieces, wherein each "serves a purpose, whether it's emotionally or for function," he explained. The space doesn't have a chance to look "bad" because it tells a story about your life, and you'll always enjoy looking at those pieces.

Rather than following design trends, Jeremiah Brent recommends using things that have meaning to you. You can either use furniture that links back to a memory or curate vignettes filled with odds and ends from your past. For instance, his floor-to-ceiling bookshelf in the media room isn't carefully curated with the latest decor fads but is stuffed with sentimental items. "Our bookshelves are a timeline of our entire life — everything that we find beautiful, everything that we find interesting, people we've loved, people we've lost," he said in the reel. "It really is this living thing in our house that always changes and completely evolves." 

If you don't have enough items (or space!) for a wall-spanning bookshelf, you can do this on a smaller scale. Consider decorating table tops or floating shelves with things like souvenirs from your travels, old family photos, framed concert tickets, and anything else that makes you think back to a special moment in your life.

You can also do this with furniture. Jeremiah Brent and Nate Berkus have a club chair in the room, but it's there because it has sentimental value, not because it looks timeless. "This chair — the first day I met Nate ... I walked into his apartment and sat down," Brent explained. However, it has since evolved to make the space feel more cohesive. It was once leather, but they have reupholstered it in a linen-like fabric. "It's been re-covered, but it means a lot to us," he said.