Home Decor for Moi?

As I've mentioned, I'm a little stylistically challenged. I've got lots of great ideas, and my heart is always in the right place as the creative being I am...

...but I get lazy.

My big fear is that I'll start out with great plans and the right intentions, and end up buying everything at Crate and Barrel. Or Pottery Barn. Or something like that. (Not that there's anything necessarily wrong with these places for the occasional odd or end...I just don't want my home to look like everyone else's.)

That said, I'm trying not to get overwhelmed by the prospect of visiting friends this summer, and am swearing to myself I will not let this rush me into buying a bunch of crap for my home.

So, I'm taking it slow and doing my research. I want so many things in this house... I want it to be classy but also reflect me and my many loves: art, travel, family...other stuff (is there more? that's the question).

I want it to be clean and organized, not cluttered... but not modern and cold... I want romance and soft colors, and comfort and homeyness...

I don't want sterile, I don't want generic... and I don't want stuffy or old ladyishness...

So now it's just a matter of putting it all together and praying that I can find some way of making it look, well, put together, and not like a psychopath lives there.

From my research on the internet, reading books about home decorating and watching HGTV 24/7, I think my first step is to decide on a color palette for each room...