Navigating Trends 2 of 3
Last week I wrote about colour trends for 2018, partly because it’s a topic that I find really interesting, but also because at this time of the year interior magazines and websites are full of the subject and I wanted to help guide you through all the different opinions out there.
This week I am looking at home interiors and next week I’ll be looking at business interiors, thinking about how to navigate trends yourself and work out what you really like and need in your home or business environment. Because there is no point following something if it doesn’t suit you!
A quick reminder of what we learned last week: A fad is a short lived fashion and a trend is what stays for many years.
So if you’re just about to decorate your home, how do you choose what you like? It can be so easy to be swept along by a fad and especially by a longer term trend. It can feel really tricky as you’ll want your home to reflect you, be contemporary, and at the same time not look dated in a few months!
Don’t Follow Trends in Your Home!
There, I’ve said it! But there really isn’t any point; you’ll either get fed up with your home every time a fad passes by that you’ve invested in or you’ll bankrupt yourself by trying!
Real trends are deep seated emotional and/or practical responses to the world around us and will naturally affect us, for example one of the massive trends at the moment is called ‘Cocooning’. The word was coined in 1981 by Faith Popcorn, a world renowned trend forecaster. In 1991 she wrote,
"…the impulse to go inside when it just gets too tough and scary outside. To pull a shell of safety around yourself…….Cocooning is about insulation and avoidance, peace and protection, cosiness and control - a sort of hyper-nesting."
Popcorn, Faith (13/10/92) The Popcorn Report: Faith Popcorn on the Future of Your Company, Your World, Your Life. Harper Collins. ISBN 9780887305948.
Sound familiar?! So these massive global trends will filter through and that’s fine, but there is only one reason why magazines want you to notice the fads out there and it’s to make money! This is why I want you to feel confident to design your own home and spend your money wisely.
So here are my 3 steps to designing your dream home interior:
Step 1. Make a Mood Board of You
I often mention mood boards in my blogs and to my clients and they are a great way to find out what you really like; don’t worry about what you’re choosing, just choose things you like. Pinterest is an amazing tool for this as it is crammed with loads of lovely interior images and you can create a board for each room in your house.
Another way to create a mood board is to think about yourself and things you already own, gather together items that you feel reflect you; perhaps a few of your favourite items of clothing, favourite wall art, a favourite vase etc. Lay them all out together so that you can really see how they complement each other.
Think about things in, and out, of your home that you’ve always loved; this way you know you won’t be following any recent fads, these are things that are truly yours and that are almost like part of your family.
Obviously I couldn't ask you to do it without doing it myself! So here is a little glimpse of what I gathered together:
There is one more that you can see on my Instagram showing my love for the colour purple!
Step 2. Analyse Your Gatherings
Once you’ve gathered the items or pictures together you need to learn how to analyse them in order to be able to create an interior scheme from them. You’ll need to be looking at the colours and also the style. This may take some time but it’ll be worth it.
So firstly the colours, what are the main colours that you see in front of you? Stop looking at the items, just see the colours. Write down the main 2 colours. Then consider some of the more minor colours that you see. This can then start to create your colour scheme. I quickly picked up on my love for the colour blue and purple.
Most schemes will incorporate some natural wood and neutral tones, and then will have 1 or 2 main colours with 1 or more accent colours. How colourful it is will depend on what you have gathered together!
Secondly the style, this is somewhat trickier as it obviously a large field of knowledge but I’d suggest that you look at the details, how would you describe them? Are they simple, clean and minimal or decorative, detailed and traditional? I’d also suggest that you looked at the materials the items are made of, are they hard and smooth or soft and warm?
I'd describe my favourite things as organic, artistic, natural and apparently I have a thing for birds that I hadn't noticed before!
See if you can find similar images on Google or Pinterest, or post a photo of your collection onto my Facebook page and I’ll help you out.
Then write yourself a description of what you really like, for example think about the way wine is described and use it to describe your style.
Step 3. Create an Interiors Mood Board
Hopefully you’ll see that by really thinking through your favourite things and analysing them carefully you can begin to build this into an interior design scheme.
The final step will be to create another mood board but this time searching for specific interiors. If you have discovered that you like minimal details with simple colours then that is what you should search for, just add the word interiors in there! Likewise if you realise that everything you like is blue and traditional then search for blue traditional interiors.
When you feel ready, take this new found understanding to the shops, and while you might still treat yourself to the odd trendy item I hope that you’ll see that you now know how to create a home interior that reflects you and is contemporary, but at the same time will not look dated in a few months!
If you tried my 3 steps then I'd love to hear how it goes and whether you found it helpful! Share your pictures on my Instagram or Facebook sites!