Obviously any fiction is going to be a combination of what is invented, what is overheard, what is experienced, what is experienced by people close to you, what you are told, what you have read, all mixed together into this kind of soup which, like any good soup, at the end you cannot really disting
The worst thing any decorator can do is give a client the feeling that he's walking around somebody else's house; the rooms must belong to the owner, not to the decorator; and no rooms can have atmosphere unless they are used and lived in.