interior trends

Trend alert: The Library

First it was the death of the dining room. With our hunger for open plan living, we no longer needed a separate room for entertaining our dinner guests, so we converted our old dining rooms into playrooms, teen hangout dens, even home offices. But there’s a growing new trend out there which I think is fabulous… it’s the return of the Library Room.

Along with the growing popularity of a separate pantry and the ever coveted boot room, it’s another sign that our home interiors are increasingly reflective of a time gone by. As an antidote to the technology-driven world we live in, our homes have become our havens and we crave a more organic, wholesome, environment to live in. Along with the all-connected, technology-abundant open plan living spaces we have created, there’s a growing need to escape from it. And how better than with a good old book!

…

Beige is back… how to work it in your home

Latte, cream, buff, sand, khaki, ecru, stone, fawn… no matter how you label it, it’s all beige, isn’t it? Well, guess what, it seems this once boring neutral is making a comeback into our homes, perhaps finally stalling our long time love affair with all things grey… but are we ready to embrace it and can we make beige exciting again?

I’ve been noticing beige returning to interiors a lot lately, particularly in modern rustic schemes, where it’s been used as a contrasting, warming, backdrop against modern black kitchen units or introduced alongside natural wood finishes and raw linen textures for a soothing, tonal scheme. It doesn’t portray the coolness that we so often associate with grey and in my opinion, it’s probably a much easier shade to get right. Grey can be really tricky to perfect in different lights, particularly as it picks up blue, green or purple tones, however beige can work in almost any light – you just have to choose your surrounding decor scheme carefully to keep the look fresh and modern, rather than bland and boring.

…

Embracing indigo blue this winter season

Indigo is a really gorgeous AW interiors trend this year, so if you’ve been looking for something a little different from the usual in your home, maybe this is the colour for you. To keep the look cosy for winter, just make sure to layer this beautifully deep and rich colour up with plenty of textures, offsetting its inky depth with neutral accents, such as warm beiges, creamy whites and soft blush pinks.

Here are some ways you can embrace this beautiful blue into your home’s interior…

…

Recreate the Scandi Boho look in your home

It seems like a juxtaposition in terms, the words scandi and boho appearing in the same sentence, however it appears that the clean, defined lines of scandi design and the eclectic artfulness of boho marry beautifully. Just type ‘scandi boho’ into Pinterest or Google Images and your eyes will immediately be met with a feast of stunning images of home interiors typifying this trend. It’s no surprise this easy to live with look has become the defining interior mood for 2017 and I absolutely love it!

The Scandinavian and bohemian decor moods have a lot in common when you think about it … lots of trailing greenery, natural wood surfaces and an emphasis on texture (think sheepskin rugs) and pattern (boho ethnic or scandi geometric). By combining these two styles, a minimalistic scandi-inspired interior can be warmed up with colour and texture, just as a busy, eclectic interior can be pared down and streamlined a little with white painted walls or monochrome touches.

If you believe you can never have too many houseplants or vintage rugs in your home, this could well be because you’re already channeling this look. However, for the rest of you who simply aspire to it thanks to an Insta-feed of swoon worthy scandi-boho room shots, but don’t have the confidence to try it out yet, read on to find out how to work it successfully in your own home!

…

Hygge your Home

I talked yesterday about the Danish culture of hygge and how you can embrace it as a way of life, both tangibly in your home decor and emotionally by spending more time on yourself and with friends and family. Although the high season of hygge is during the winter months, it can also be a focus throughout the summertime, as we prepare our homes and outdoor living areas to entertain friends and enjoy the longer, brighter evenings.

For now though, we need to get through the remaining weeks of winter, so for the purpose of this post, I’m looking at key interiors pieces you can bring into your home to make it a more ‘hygge’ environment throughout the gloomy winter weather. For the Danes, hygge is purely focused on belonging to the moment, just being grateful for what you have and enjoying the good things in life with good people. It’s that simple and it really is believed to have a positive and uplifting effect on your inner soul. Why else would Denmark supposedly be the happiest nation on earth?

…

Time to Get Cosy the Danish Way: Embrace ‘hygge’

It is at this time of year when the cheery Christmas lights have been packed away, yet the days are still likely to be dank, grey and cold for the foreseeable future, and having enjoyed plentiful tasty, comforting food over the festive season, we are now made to feel guilty for craving anything without kale in it when what we really need to get through this cold season is a pile of warm toasted crumpets, dripping with butter, and a large steaming mug of milky coffee. This is the juxtaposition we call January in the UK and in my opinion, there is only one way to survive it – it’s time to embrace the Danish practice of ‘hygge’!

…