I say this a lot (forgive me) but the number one most transformative thing you can do to shelves or bookcases (or anything boring) is paint them out the same colour as your walls. The reason – because whatever you put on those shelves will immediately feel more expensive, promise you – just wait for the images! Sometimes I box out shelves from Ikea or a DIY store in MDF to fatten them and make them feel more gallery esq, sometimes I am impatient like with our bedroom which has taken ages to sort, and just paint the laminate. This only really works if you’re not moving the stuff around much as it chips off – but I tell you it’s the painting it out that is the game changer!

Some images below, taken from my latest book Decorating with Style to inspire! The first three are from Shaun Clarkson’s beautiful home in London.

Photography Graham Atkins Hughes

Photography Graham Atkins Hughes

See what I mean about painting out – even tomato ketchup bottles look cool.

Below an image of Gem’s pad and our fattening up trick. MDF is glued around the shelf making it supper chunky and then painted out the same colour as the walls in eggshell.

This sounds very Martha Stewart ish   I know considering its only 5.58 am but I’m about to whip up some banana muffins (gluten free, not quite sugar free maple syrup is involved) then pick big branches of lilac from the garden and scatter around the house. We have the oldest most beautiful lilac tree (the only thing we kept in the garden when we moved in).  The blooms are something you just don’t see in the flower markets – fat headed and so so big – they die within a day but the scent is intoxicating!

A few years back a store not a stones throw from us pretty much copied most of our product range. It wasn’t subtle with the odd cross over product it was a blatant copy – she’s doing well they thought lets just rip off everything she has. The downside for them is regrettably they had no clue on how to style such products, arrange them so that they tell a narrative and delight and tantalise a customer’s eye. You could tell walking into their store that they didn’t feel anything about the products, they didn’t really give a rat’s ass, lazily they thought we were onto something so they would copy.

Except they forgot one thing – you get nowhere by copying, if you don’t have your own voice and your own perspective, you might us well chuck the towel in. Secondly if you’re in the industry purely to jump on someone else’s band wagon and make a quick buck then regrettably you’re days are numbered I hate to say.  Its a tough old game retail – you don’t just open the door and hope you get sales and press attention you’ve got to be passionate, obsessed even and have a distinct point of view. You’ve got to love, I mean love what you sell. Everything in my store is in my home – nothing will pass that threshold if I don’t 100 per cent love it. Frustrating for the people that work for me because I’m passing up on money making products simply because ‘I don’t love them’, but that is how I run this business and will continue to run this business.

Today I actually meant to write a post on shelving but this just kind of poured out of me, hope you don’t mind. I would say the same goes for interiors – there is no point following what’s on trend when it comes to decorating homes. Its all about being inspired by and finding your own voice, and isn’t that a far more fun and intelligent way to decorate?

A few images of my store below:

Oh and that store I just told you about, looks like its closing down!

The black was the wrong black which is a bit like saying the snow is the wrong kind of snow but stay with me. When going dark regrettably (although I wish this wasn’t true) its not such an easy case of pulling any old dark hue and assuming it will work. Black is a tough colour to opt for so the tonality of it has to be right. I am sure I am putting zillions of people off right now by saying this but it’s all down to the tonality. Dark colours envelope a room and make it feel squishy and comforting, wrapping you up in the biggest blanket – but they only do that if the hue in question has soft undertones. Anything harsh or hard will look and feel harsh and hard. I use Railings a lot from Farrow and Ball which is the softest black I know almost buttery if that makes sense, it has depth it draws you in but it doesn’t jar.

Same with chalk board paint it has incredible depth and almost feels like you’re residing in a Vermeer painting or hanging out in some gentleman’s drinking den.  So I think that’s where these guys went wrong, the black was regrettably to harsh, that and the huge amount of white contrasts.   Its a simple trick but if you can limit the amount of white contrasts with dark colours it will really help you out. The odd white thing is cool but too much white feels way to jarring. Instead if you opt for taupes, soft browns, the odd caramel, a dash of toffee they will gently contrast and complement your darker undertones. Contrasting the odd thing is cool but when you overdo it rather than feel beautiful and sophisticated it feels uncomfortable and a bit off key! The thing about decorating is that its all a learning curve. I’ve been there a zillion times, painted a room out filled it with stuff stood back and bam – not happy with the end result.

However its exactly at this point where you have to play detective and figure out what is missing why it doesn’t all add up. Learn from the mistakes. Do that,  tweak and then magic happens and rooms could end up looking  as cool as these two interiors below:

This interior designed by Roman and Williams does contrast in the living area at least, neutral tones. But spot the difference the walls are buttery and soft and not white and harsh. The bedroom is beyond beautiful , no huge expanse of white bed linen everything quietly harmonizes. Love it!

See how softer tones like browns and toffees make the darker hues look even more sophisticated. That’s the thing about interiors you never stop learning one of the reasons I never tire of what I do!

Have a lovely Tuesday x

It can be as easy as arranging a few personal bits on a side table (postcards, paintings, candles, flowers, books) that sort of thing. Our impressions of a room come not from the big big ticket items but from the details like  paintings on a wall, or  how books are displayed on a shelf. You don’t need to go out and buy a load of stuff,  most of us have mismatched candlesticks or t-lights hanging around the place, a collection of vases or china, heaps of little books. Personal bits.  A general rule of thumb should you wish to follow and even though I am a rule breaker I tend to agree here – family photos are best confined to bedrooms, bathrooms and hallways. Other little finishing touches that make all the difference include; hardware (think antique brass door handles, or quartz or inky black porcelain). Lighting is a game changer – when we get tired of a room we can’t all go out and change the sofa but we can change the lighting as it completely changes the atmosphere in a room. Any room with only 4  lights or less- will I hate to tell have  personality issues. It will read as practical and functional and hospital like rather than beautiful and atmospheric, the more lights softly glowing the cooler the space. Other finishing touches include bedding – as soon as I swapped mine around from white cotton to inky dark linen I couldn’t believe the difference. Now if I could I would spend the entire day in the bedroom I would, its one of the coolest rooms in the house.

Oh and just to warn it never ends there is always another little finishing touch you can add to a room. Another little posy of flowers, a cool little ceramic, another lamp – but that is the fun part right. It gets a little addictive. Some images below taken from my book Decorating with Style (photography Graham Atkins Hughes).

It can be as simple as this – a few hats, paintings, bags – wham bam, nailed it!

Or it can be more elaborate like this!

I’m off – early Pilates session and then its back for granola with almond milk from Gwyneth’s new book – am obsessed with the stuff, made heaps of it over the weekend.

Have a lovely Monday xx

Have a lovely weekend it’s a working one but then I need a bit of kicked backness on Sunday like  pottering, cooking from Gwyneth, gardening that kind of thing. Oh and did I tell you last week I planted faux allium’s in the earth, which sounds nut I realise but its kind of looking super sweet now, if the sun comes out over the weekend I shall take a picture  and show you. Not that I think the sun knows where England is anymore! xx

Also another big thank you to everyone, who signed up and has taken the online design class, today is the last day. It is because of you guys actually that I suddenly realised how fabulous a forum will be because I have gotten so much out of looking at your work, commenting, advising, feeling part of the team and so thank you again.

I thought I would talk a little about DIY this morning a subject pretty close to my heart -which is surprising because I am not the best handywoman in town nor do I have any sort of patience. I want everything done now, in an instant and looking fabulous! Plus DIY gets a bad wrap, sneered on by many in the field (design is a snooty old business you know) but I like knocking all those predisposed assumptions on the head. Bit like faux flowers and pot pouri – the more people turn up their noses the more determined I am to dy mystify– weird hey!

When budgets are restricted (actually even when they are not restricted) creating something yourself gives you the most enormous amount of pleasure and saves you mega bucks. I have a problem with spending any money or anything boring – cupboards, kitchen units, wardrobes hate it – I want to spend my money on the cool stuff. Or in my head I see things that I can’t find in any store or market so then I make them (when I say we that is the Royal we btw)!

This could be as simple as finding some junk furniture and painting or spraying a fab colour (paint being the most transformative thing you can do to anything). The trick as I will say until I am 90 and you are bored to death of me is to push the colour palette – do that and you take any piece to the next level.

My younger sister had  the brilliant idea of turning an old table she found in a flea into a bed head, cost next to nothing and yet it has given her room a totally rustic boho vibe. This isn’t her bedroom below found it on pinterest but next time I’m there will take a few pics to show you guys.

So I say we should embrace DIY a bit more, I’m talking lazy Sunday afternoon kind of DIY not something that takes a week (correction a month) like the blasted wardrobes in my bedroom. First of all you save mega bucks and secondly you give you home a totally unique vibe – a good thing in my book!

Happy Wednesday – (can you be happy when its blowing a gale is freezing cold and you have to pedal to Pilates at 6.15? Am thinking not!

Today if you don’t mind I have some questions for you guys as I am in a bit of a dilemma. Firstly my crazy schedule means that the Design School will be stopping over the summer the last ones being in June. Huge shame I know but I just can’t juggle the schedule to make them fit in (btw if you are thinking of coming along there are only a few spaces left on the June dates). The good thing though is that they will be coming back with a bang in September, new content, new workshops and a whole different way of looking at interiors. And so here is my dilemma - I get asked a fair bit about doing half-day classes – do you guys think they are a good idea?  Rather than a full day a 3 hour morning or afternoon session held in my pad obviously priced according so £75 – with the option of staying for lunch, or later on in the afternoon for champagne and snacks? What do you think – would you prefer a whole day or a half day?  I am too much involved in the whole process to make a decision so thought I might ask you guys if you don’t mind?

Secondly I am changing the blog around in the next few weeks and as its been such amazing fun having a forum with my Online class, tossing around ideas, learning about peoples fears, seeing before and afters of their spaces I thought I would put a forum on the blog. That way we can all get to see what each of us is doing, encourage, help out, congratulate, and connect that sort of thing. When people come to the classes in my pad they often keep in touch, meet for coffee, loop us in with photos and so forth, exactly what is happening over on the forum. As that forum shuts down in the next month I thought it would be such a shame to loose it as its been fab for me seeing this community of kindred spirits. So what do you think?

Finally last night I had a Twitter chat with my on line class, I’ve got another one this morning at 9.30 and it was so much fun which made me think once a month I want a twitter chat – obviously I would time it for different zones around the world as we have a big following in Australia and America but I didn’t realise until the online class got underway just how much I enjoy the whole community spirit of the web – something I haven’t really thought about before. We are all scattered all over the world, going about our days, doing our thing but regularly on a forum or once a month on twitter I think it would be really cool for us all to connect. You never know we  might even encourage more people to cross over, convert, and push boundaries. Whadda you think?

The weekend past in a nano second and with just Sunday as a down day I had a list as long as my arm to get through. It went a bit like this; garden (i.e. pour bucket loads of miracle grow, seaweed, tomato feed or whatever else I can think of over plants to encourage vigorous growth to hide neighbours ugly building at the back of the garden; put up shelves in the bedroom; style shelves in the bedroom (more on that in a bit) cook from Gwyneth’s book some recipes to get back on track, slipped off the wagon Saturday evening as had wine and an Indian takeout (whoops); nail what I have to get done this week, clean house, do the washing blah blah blah.

A question I get asked alot is how to style a mantle, a console a table and my answer is a simple one – patience! I don’t just throw a shelf or console together in a second, I put something together, hate it, stand back, tug my hair  try again, hate it, do the same thing over and over again until it feels right.

The bedroom shelves for instance are tiny narrow little things  so everything on them has to be front facing. Easy peasy I thought to myself at 6 o’clock last night – I can pull this together in 5, WRONG took at least an hour, until I was happy and we’re just talking about a few mags, the odd postcard and a bit of art – hardly anything as the shelves are small.So below I have listed some pointers which may get you on your in way in creating (as the Americans say) a tablescape.

1) Tucking something smaller like a postcard or notebook behind something major like a mirror or a piece of art takes the eye further and adds an element of intrigue

2) Stacks of books really help you out. A little pile of say 3 books with a small bunch of blooms or candle on top, adds texture and interest.

3) Rather than leave gaps, vary the height of your objects its far more intriguing

4) If you know anything about interiors or styling then the  old trick of everything  having one unifying tone plus one extra shot will get you out of all sorts of trouble. I tend to push it with maybe two colours but everything else is pretty much neutral. It allows me to mix far more easily.

Finally never ever ever put things in rows. Its to boring, its way to show home ish, and its  to easy. Interiors aren’t easy; putting things in rows is like decorating by numbers, interiors should make you curious. Being curious is being daring and being daring is being alive! Pretty deep sentence for 6am on Monday morning, but there you go!

Shot of my pad below (from the Independent) – a simple little detail of my desk, oh and by the way a big thank you to the Independent on Sunday this weekend for their fabulous feature on my house, love the images x

But back to interiors and Pinterest it’s totally great for finding things that are a little hard to nail. Like art for instance. As a buyer its one of the hardest things to source, and personally I find it one of the hardest things to actually find. Which is why I am excited to share with you Saatchi’s online gallery. They have some incredible boards on Pinterest (just started following them) with art up for as little as £100. Cool no?

Happy Friday – oh and follow me on Pinterest if you fancy, I’ve just created a cool board on breaking the decorating rules!