The Interior Design Nook Blog
Welcome to the Interior Design Nook blog. I love writing about interiors as much as I love designing them! Here, you can read about all things colour, neurodiversity, and how to create an authentic, personalised and practical home. I always aim to give you a fresh insight and tips beyond the standard interiors advice you’ll find elsewhere, so dive in and enjoy!
Love,
How to Up Your Interior Design Game
Do you ever walk into a room and feel like something’s just... off, but you can’t quite put your finger on it? You’re not alone. Often when clients come to me with spaces that don’t quite sing, and more often than not, it’s due to a few simple missteps. The good news? With a bit of tweaking, you can completely transform a room into something that feels beautiful, effortless and uplifting. I’ve put together a few essential troubleshooting questions to ask to yourself, based on my golden rules for creating a balanced and characterful interior.
Updating your home for autumn
As the crisp air of autumn rolls in, I start feeling that urge to embrace the season’s warmth and comfort within my home. Like most working mums, I don’t have time for wholesome, hand crafted, creative projects. Nonetheless, you don’t need to spend a lot of time or a fortune to transform your home into a snug retreat that welcomes in the colder months.
1. Layer Up with Textiles
One of the easiest ways to bring warmth into your home is by layering textiles. Think throws, cushions and rugs. Swap out your light summer cushions and bedding for heavier...
Maximizing Your Interior Design Budget: A Cost Guide
How much does it cost to do up your home in 2024? The cost of decorating has changed significantly in recent years and it can be confusing to work out how best to spend your budget to make the most of it. Did you know that antique furniture generally costs less than new (and it’s usually solid wood where even quite expensive modern furniture is often veneered MDF), but antique rugs usually cost more than new ones? Did you know that you could save £300 per window buy choosing Roman blinds instead of curtains? Below, I’ve set out low, average …
How To Decorate Kids’ Rooms
Decorating a child’s bedroom can be loads of fun, but you have a dauntingly tough client, and if you’re pregnant and designing a nursery, chances are you’re trying to make decisions with baby brain fog! Here’s a secret: when I had my son, I had no idea what I wanted his nursery to be like! 4 years on, I’m brimming with ideas for kids’ rooms! Not least inspired by my 12 years working with children and teenagers and of course my own 2 children, they have become one of my favourite rooms to decorate. In this blog I’ve set out …
5 Ways to have Lovely Interiors without breaking the bank
Are you refreshing your interior on a budget? Many of us have hang-ups about spending large sums of money, and feel like we can’t have or don’t deserve lovely things. Perhaps you feel those are the reserve of wealthier people than you, or simply that your budget won’t accommodate any luxuries at all. Here are my top tips for getting high-end quality without breaking the bank.
New Service: Designer for a Day
I’m so excited to launch this new way of working with you! This blog is about the design journey I took with a client using the Designer for a Day method.
Sensory positive home: Olfactory considerations (smells!)
This week we are looking at aroma. Aromas can overtly or subliminally affect mood and emotion, but is smell really an interior design consideration? Well yes, and it’s not just about smelly candles and scent profiles! In my experience the sensory issues relating to odours in the home are things like cooking smells, cleaning products and – ahem – pongy toilets! So if you’re renovating, now is your chance to design those issues out of your life! For kitchen odours, ensure you plan for good ventilation for your hob and that the extraction is external. I’ve just installed a downdraft extractor in…
Sensory positive home: Auditory considerations
This week we are looking at auditory considerations - the links between the sounds in your home and your wellbeing. Whilst I can’t stop your kids from stampeding around shouting, I can suggest ways to make it grate less! The textures in your home are actually responsible for the way it sounds! The more textile elements you can bring into your home, the more dampened the sound will be. A wall of glass (i.e. bifold doors) might bring you closer to nature with a view of the garden, but it makes for a noisier space. Crittall or Victorian style mullions…
Sensory positive home: Sensory toolkit
If you have sensory issues, your home has a big impact on your wellbeing. The way your home looks, feels, sounds and smells is really important, and it’s crucial for the rooms in your home to support the way you need to feel and behave in those spaces – a calm bedroom, a gentle but uplifting morning shower, a relaxing evening bath, an energising and focussed home office.
This is the first of 5 posts to guide you through creating a sensory positive home. Today we are taking an overview, identifying sensory needs and where they apply in your home, and
How to Mix Patterns
Today I’m talking in detail about how to successfully mix patterns in an interior. The first step is to make sure you have a cohesive colour scheme. I like mixing lots of colours in an interior, but where the palette tells one clear story. I might only use a tiny amount of some colours, but I love the depth it brings to an interior compared to having everything matching.
Help, I have Eclectic Taste!
How to know what works together and what doesn’t when you have eclectic taste.
Why you should pick your paint colour last
This is a fool-proof guide to the order of decisions when decorating a room. Simply put, fabrics and wallpapers come in limited colours but paint comes in any colour imaginable, so don’t limit yourself by picking it first. Here’s how to do it right.