interior <\/a>as a whole,\u201d she says. \u201cIt means you have to justify why something should or shouldn\u2019t work for your space.\u201d<\/p>\n\u201cBy exploring the wider context and considering what the right item or material is for a given space, you\u2019re making a more confident decision, which means it\u2019s thought through, justified and, whether or not it\u2019s a trend item, you\u2019ll be able to live with that decision.\u201d<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t colour-drench a room without plans for lighting <\/p>\n
Painting the walls and ceilings (and sometimes even the floor) in the same colour has only grown in popularity recently. And though it looks appealing in someone else\u2019s living room, it might not have the same effect on yours.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnless you\u2019re very bold with it and comfortable with the consequences, colour-drenching is going to make the ceiling feel much lower and quite cave-like \u2014 even if it\u2019s quite a broad room,\u201d Kendell explains. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t say \u2018no don\u2019t do it\u2019, but if you are thinking about something like that, you\u2019ve got to mitigate against the outcome, which is ensuring that your lighting is really well done.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cMost people tend to put a load of downlights in the ceiling and then wonder why everything falls a bit flat. You can spend a fortune on beautiful furnishings, flooring and the rest of it. But if you\u2019ve got rubbish lighting, it can feel very two-dimensional. A good quality layered lighting scheme where you can set different moods and dim different areas can even make less expensive elements shine.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fancy panelling isn\u2019t easy to reverse <\/p>\n
Let\u2019s say you were impulsive and opted for a design that you very quickly fell out of love with. Taking a sledgehammer to it won\u2019t necessarily fix the issue either.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s so much you can do in terms of furnishing, but people are being brainwashed by all the imagery of panelling, so it\u2019s definitely a trend that seems to be quite strong. But if you\u2019ve got panelling and you regret it, it\u2019s obviously going to be very expensive and disruptive to remove it,\u201d says Whelan.<\/p>\n
If this sounds like you, don\u2019t panic. Audrey says: \u201cI\u2019d be looking at trying to paint it all in the same color and reducing the contrast between the panelling and the wall so it pulls the focal point away from the panelling itself.\u201d <\/p>\n
Think twice before buying everything in navy<\/p>\n
Millennial grey \u2014 a seemingly inoffensive trend when it arrived en masse in the 2010s \u2014 has become the butt of decor jokes, but don\u2019t be surprised if it makes a return in the next decade or so.<\/p>\n
Navy blue has taken it\u2019s place as the go-to shade. However, a word of warning before you commit to the hue. \u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201c<\/strong>Navy has seemed to become a neutral option for a lot of people. We were moving away from a time when a lot more people had a wood finish on their kitchen (which is coming back in now). But I think it allowed a lot of people to feel they could just have neutral walls, pale floors and a navy kitchen and nothing in between\u201d, says Audrey. <\/p>\nShe explains that simply opting for an inoffensive colour-scheme isn\u2019t enough on its own. If you truly want to make a space feel welcoming, it\u2019s a good idea to try some transitional shades too. <\/p>\n
\u201cI talk to people a lot about the spectrum from black to white. If you don\u2019t have any color range [in between], you end up with this really stark contrast. It won\u2019t feel homely, no matter how much you\u2019ve spent on your extension.\u201d <\/p>\n
Forget expensive cement floors. Trust in Linoleum<\/p>\n
Linoleum, surprisingly, is one of the latest examples of how to incorporate a previously scoffed-at interior choice into your home without instantly making it feel more dated.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been threatening the return of Lino for a long time,\u201d says Kendell.\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s a fabulous surface and a lot less expensive than having, say, a poured resin floor which has been a big deal for contemporary interiors over the years, or micro cement, which is also very expensive.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cLino is available in such amazing colours and ticks the sustainability box as it\u2019s made of natural materials, so it\u2019s a great choice. Again, it doesn\u2019t necessarily suit every home but companies have reimagined the colourways and designs that work for today. It\u2019s also a great way to introduce colour. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt goes back to where you want your eye to be drawn to in your colour-scheme and how to balance that out in the rest of the space, rather than overwhelming the space with textures and patterns.\u201d<\/p>\n
Only rotate a few soft furnishings throughout the year<\/p>\n
The problem isn\u2019t necessarily liking a trend, but making swift and significant changes and expecting to feel the same way about them in perpetuity. If we must scratch our shopping itch, Julia instead recommends focusing on soft furnishings and making sure more permanent fixtures \u2014 say, dining tables and sofas \u2014 are well made and admired enough that we can keep them for years.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe way we want to feel in our homes changes hugely through the seasons \u2014 and for practical reasons too,\u201d Julia says.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cVictorians used to have summer curtains and winter curtains because the windows are very drafty. We don\u2019t tend to have that issue anymore. But actually, that feeling of swapping out light things for nice scrunchy velvet and big, chunky curtains to embrace the autumn and winter helps you to feel differently about your house. Not all of us can afford or have the room to store lots of different seasonal items, but starting smaller with throws, cushions and curtains can create a completely different vibe.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lighting, colour-schemes and impressive design may help our homes to look more on trend, but the key to loving them and future-proofing our interirors, appears to be much simpler: taking more time to think about what we like, why we like it and how to trust our own judgment.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Some choices just won’t feel homely, no matter how much you spent on your extension. Here’s what the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48239,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[267],"tags":[365,362,363,364,366,848,18,117,3617,5484,35713,19,1790,17],"class_list":{"0":"post-48238","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-artsdesign","12":"tag-design","13":"tag-diy","14":"tag-eire","15":"tag-entertainment","16":"tag-features","17":"tag-homes","18":"tag-homes-and-gardens","19":"tag-ie","20":"tag-interior-design","21":"tag-ireland"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48238\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}