Decoration
Interior Design Life Lessons To Take into 2024
Another year, another list of lessons learned for any budding or professional interior designer. Click here to find out more about ours.
Interior Design Life Lessons To Take into 2024
There’s always something a little bit intimidating about coming up with New Year’s resolutions. Looking ahead to the next 12 months of ‘doing it all again’, while exciting, is a somewhat daunting prospect – a sobering thought in a quiet moment in the lull between the 25th of December and the 1st of January. The usual suspects – eat healthier, get out more, start a new hobby – have been tried and tested so many times already. We prefer to bring with us a few key life lessons learnt in the previous year with which to enjoy the next.
The right lighting is sometimes all that’s missing
It’s a tale as old as time – a room designed with only the most beautiful and complementary elements that somehow still feels like nothing more than the sum of its parts. That’s not necessarily the worst that can happen to an interior designer, but it’s not the best, either – it falls short of that intangible je ne sais quoi that makes the most impressive rooms…well…impressive.
But that’s not to say that anyone needs to return to the drawing board with a huff and a sigh. Often, the missing element is nothing more drastic than the right lighting.
Decorative lighting serves a much more valuable purpose to any well-designed room than ambient lighting. Experiment with a more dimensional approach to lighting that offers more in terms of warmth and texture and everything else may just fall into place.
Creativity is a risk worth taking
There’s always something to be said for the tried-and-true method – and some elements of interior design will never change. The classics are the classics for a reason, after all!
But creating a home that feels truly tailored to the people inside it (more on that just below) requires a certain amount of risk-taking. They say fortune favours the bold, and our own designs – from our fabrics (https://www.pennymorrison.com/collections/fabrics) to the rooms we decorate – are all testament to the power of stepping outside the comfort zone – but not so far that you lose your own ‘voice’.
Home should feel like a retreat
We’re not just talking about having a quiet spot for reading, contemplation, and general stillness – we’re talking about creating a home that feels so carefully and intentionally designed for the people who dwell within it that stepping over the threshold has a tangible effect on mood, energy, and outlook.
It may sound idealistic, but the best interior designs are predicated on boosting wellbeing. Of course, the results won’t look the same for everyone – and that’s what makes designing for wellbeing so exciting. From biophilic design to maximalism, there are so many ways to turn coming home into a return to peace and goodness.
Quality over quantity
Fast fashion has sunk its claws into the interior design world harder than ever this year. The trend cycles are getting faster and faster, with social media pushing a hyper-consumerist mindset – one that says we can’t rely on any interior design to withstand more than a few months’ worth of change before it’s totally outdated once again.
Our philosophy at Penny Morrison has always been for slow production, for heritage pieces that withstand the constant ebb and flow of trends, and for taking pride in the craftsmanship behind a room’s design and décor — not just the end result.
Set a thoughtful table, no matter the occasion
Putting a real creative effort into making the breakfast, lunch, or dinner table look special is a wonderful mission to take on. It takes very little effort to make a table appear thoughtfully planned, and doing so can really impact the atmosphere of a meal.
The dining table is guilty of representing something of a dumping ground throughout the course of the working week, and fitting a meal in and around all those ‘abandoned somewhere between here and there’ items isn’t the best way to embrace the ritual of eating together.
It doesn’t need to be a full-blown tablescape every night of the week, but a little extra time invested into celebrating mealtimes is never wasted.
Self-critique is not always necessary
If, in the course of your rearranging and redecorating, you realise that you’ve trodden on the toes of one of those ever-sacred interior design rules, there’s no need to backtrack: mentally apologise to the powers that be and put things into their ‘proper’ place.
If something works in spite of breaking those cardinal rules, let it. There’s no need to adhere rigidly to the guidelines or excuse your decision to run against the tide. Self-doubt is normal, but it’s relatively easily squashed by a good old, ‘Well, never mind!’
Don’t derail a beautiful interior because it doesn’t fit within the guidelines – take it as an exception that proves the rule.
More from Decoration
