The Summer of Self-Return: Reclaiming Your Design Voice
Summer isn’t just a season. It’s a mirror. It reflects what’s been buried under the weight of winter, the pace of spring, and the pressure to perform. And if you let it, this season will whisper something sacred to you:
Come home to yourself.
This isn’t about a vacation or a weekend away. It’s about a deeper return—one that begins inside and reveals itself in your home, your habits, your healing. As the light gets brighter, now is the time to reconnect with your interior identity—and reclaim the design voice you may not even realize you’ve quieted.
What Is Interior Identity?
Interior identity isn’t just your taste in colors or the furniture style you lean toward. It’s much deeper than that.
It’s the sum of your values, your lived experiences, your culture, your healing, your desires—and how all of that shows up in the spaces you inhabit. It’s the story your home tells about you, even when no one else is watching.
When you ignore that identity, your space becomes disconnected. Cold. Uninspired. But when you listen to it—when you align your home with the real you—something powerful happens: your space begins to support your growth instead of stifling it.
Because here’s the truth:
When your space doesn’t reflect you, it doesn’t support you.
A deep plum velvet sofa centers the space—rich, regal, and vibrant. The gold cheetah pillow nods to ancestral strength, while the portrait above, painted with deep emotion and bold brushstrokes, anchors the room in Black feminine power.
Textured indigo wallpaper echoes West African motifs, wrapping the space in quiet heritage. Floor-to-ceiling mustard drapes filter the sun with warmth. A teal velvet chair adds contrast and comfort, while indoor palms soften the corners and reconnect us to the earth.
How We Miss the Moment
Too often, we miss the opportunity to create homes that nurture us—not because we don’t care, but because we’ve been taught to prioritize everything but ourselves.
We follow trends instead of following our stories.
We tone things down so we don’t seem “too much.”
We choose neutral over bold, minimal over meaningful, standard over soulful.
And somewhere along the way, we forget that home is not just a backdrop to our life. It’s a mirror.
Your home isn’t supposed to just look good. It should feel like you. It should affirm you. It should hold your joy, your dreams, your softness, your culture.
You can’t heal in a space that erases you
The Cultural Disconnect (and What It Costs Us)
If you’re a person of color, you already know:
We walk through a world that rarely reflects our worth—let alone celebrates it.
Interior design spaces are no different. The design industry has long centered whiteness, eurocentrism, and aesthetics that have nothing to do with our heritage, our needs, or our lived experiences.
And now, in a time when systems are working overtime to erase anything outside that narrative, the need to reclaim your voice through your home is not just important—it’s urgent.
Stop waiting for external permission. Stop waiting for the world to acknowledge your brilliance. Stop waiting for someone to say, “You matter.”
You already do. You always did.
You are ancestrally connected to people who built homes, communities, traditions, art, and practices that shaped the world. Don’t let anyone—especially not this system—make you forget that.
A vintage wooden chair sits beneath a leopard-printed lumbar pillow—soft, textured, and unapologetically bold. Above it, two framed feline silhouettes reflect strength and grace, hung against a rich black wall that anchors the space with quiet confidence.
A sculptural floor lamp casts warm light over African mud cloth-inspired wallpaper, where linear patterns tell a story of lineage and rhythm. A round gold accent table holds a mix of woven and ceramic vessels, both functional and symbolic—proof that every detail can be both beautiful and rooted.
Reclaiming the Narrative Through Space
So what does it look like to reclaim your interior identity?
It looks like art on the walls that tells your story.
Textiles that feel like home—not just where you live, but where you come from.
Books on your shelves that reflect your history and your future.
Colors, shapes, and textures that remind you: You belong here.
It also looks like function meeting soul.
Design that allows you to rest, to reconnect, to reprogram from the noise of a world that often gets it all wrong about you.
Your home should reprogram you daily—with love, with joy, with remembrance.
Your Wellness Is In the Details
Wellness isn’t just green juice and therapy.
It’s not just yoga and affirmations.
Those things matter—but they’re only the beginning.
For people of color, wellness must also be about the micro-messages that surround us daily. Because we are navigating complex systems designed to confine, diminish, and exhaust us.
Your home? That’s where the real healing starts.
That’s where you reset.
That’s where you restore.
That’s where you get to tell the truth about who you are—loudly, boldly, unapologetically.
Your home must be your sanctuary. Your place of reset. Your place of resistance.
This Summer, Come Home to You
Let this be the season you return to yourself.
Take inventory of your space.
Ask what it’s been reflecting back to you.
Ask what you want to reclaim.
What you want to release.
What you want to celebrate.
Because you deserve more than a well-decorated home.
You deserve a space that sees you, holds you, and reminds you: you are the story, the art, the history, and the future.
This summer, reclaim your design voice. Reclaim your identity. Reclaim your space.
And if you’re ready to design from the inside out—We would love to talk with you.
Kadija Taylor, Owner/Principal Designer, Home and Sanctuary
✨ Ready to create a space that reflects who you are? Explore Your Sanctuary Mood Board Subscription for inspiration. Subscribe Now
📅 Let’s Connect! Have a design question or need a customized approach? Book a Discovery Call
Follow along for more wellness-centered design inspiration → Instagram | Facebook