Julia Kendell gives us her top decorating tips
Interior designer and TV presenter Julia Kendell knows how to make a house a home. She's currently building a new one for herself and her family to live in and has kindly taken the time to give you some tips and how you can stay on trend with your design.
A recent study found that half of British women care more about their home's appearance than their own. Julia tells us what she thinks of the recent findings:
I do think it's quite surprising to be honest, I'm also very encouraged to see that so many women are inspired to update their homes. It was a big shock to me to learn that women are spending more on their homes than on themselves because fashion is such a big thing in this country and I've always thought that interior has always been the second choice, but clearly not. So yes it is surprising.
Does your home have a particular theme, or is each room different?
Well we're currently living in, well it's not exactly a temporary home, but we are going to be building a new house in about two months time. So, we're currently living in the house that was on the plot when we bought it, so it's a bit sort of ramshackle. It's a bit like an old shed. But what we've done here is, because it's only going to be temporary - we've lived here for about a year now and we've only got about another six months, nine months to go - we furnished it with entirely second-hand items because when we come to moving into the new house we're going to want to start afresh. Start with a whole new style. The new house is going to be quite industrial, which is quite a big trend this year, old sort of puritanical, industrial theme which is quite mauscline in a way but it softens the tactile and texturial elements; I really quite like that look.
Would you advise people to go for more of a theme over the whole house?
I would advise people to do whatever they wish to do in their homes. I think, long-gone are the days that we certainly had in the 90s and the early part of the noughties, when people were decorating their houses just for potentially reselling and ofcourse people are now personalising their homes because they're staying in them, they're not moving as much as they used to. So their houses are becoming their homes again which is fantastic really and as it should be.
I think it's always good, unless you've got a really huge house, I think it's always good to have a common colour theme running throughout the house. It's not to say that every room needs to be the same colour, but there needs to be a link colour between rooms, which helps to take the eye between rooms. Because if you've got a red room, then a blue room, then a green room, it can be quite a lot for the eye to take in and it actually makes the house feel smaller, but if you have one colour that links through all of the rooms, with then potentially different accent colours, then that's quite a good way to create flow in the house and help it to feel as spacious as possible.
When people are redecorating a room, what would you say is the first thing that people should think about?
They should absolutely plan it from the outset. A lot of people start decorating on a Friday night or a Saturday morning without really giving it a lot of thought; "I know, let's redecorate the living room this weekend." That's when they run into trouble.
There's not really a specific one place to start. You clearly have to consider the shape and size of the room. So have a good think about how you want that room to feel, do you want it to be a glamorous space? Do you want it to be minimal and uncluttered?
The way that our homes are, really affects the way that we feel, it affects our moods. Particularly the colours that we choose as well can really have a psychological effect and so it's very important to consider exactly how you want that room to make you feel from the outset.
Have a look at how much natural daylight you've got coming in as well. Whether the room is north or south facing and that will help to determine how to make the best out of the room.
If a person has a really tight budget, what can they do to instantly change the feel or look of a room?
On a very tight budget, certainly bringing in a new accent colour can help enormously. Even if it's just bringing in some colour with some cushions, even a new picture. I mean to be honest, obviously painting a room is an obvious one, if you were to do a focus wall, maybe just using one pot of paint, again it can have a massive impact.
Taking down old curtains that are perhaps absorbing a lot of light and replacing those with something that's a lot lighter and a lot plainer maybe. Again that can help to update an otherwise outdated room. So just small things like that can actually make a lot of difference. Changing lights and things as well, is a good one. If you've got a pendant light fitting, for example, that's perhaps got an old shade on it, just as something as a new light shade that will bounce a lot more light around the room, it can really lift a room.
What's your favourite room in the house to decorate?
Probably my kitchen, that's a very personal thing because I love cooking and I love eating. I love spending time in there, so my kitchen is very much my space in the house. It's the one room that the other men in the house don't tend to go in.
What are the latest trends that you've been seeing in home decorating, you've already mentioned industrial.
Yes, so the industrial - puritanical is quite a strong theme this year, as I said, it's sort of a pared down look, so nothing too ornate or too fussy, That's one very strong theme.
Another is, there is an uber-glamorous look at the moment. It's almost very glamourous hotel room chic and there's a lot of very rich colours and strong patterns and a lot of black, there's a lot of berry shades as well this year.
Purple is another very strong trend colour this year. And also, interestingly, grey. It's a really useful colour for people who have been stuck in a sea of beige for the last 10 or 15 years, you know they're not sure how to get out of it or they haven't got the confidence to go for a bold colour.
Switch from beige to a very pale grey, then bring in some accent colours is a great way to update a room and make it look very much more today's trend. In fact, light grey in particular can really make other colours shine out far much so than mixing them with beige. So if you want to use an accent colour, then light grey is the other neautral to put with it. You'll see a lot of greys going forward in the shops over the next 12 months or so. Every shade from light to dark.
There's still quite a strong country theme going on, very much a throwback to Heartbeat, retro, you know a country feel. Very strong. Lots and lots of good trends, this year.
What tips do you have for someone who has never decorated before.
How exciting... Well I think that the first thing you need to do, is to start collecting some images, sort of things that you like, pictures that inspire you, so that you start to collect together a library of different furniture, etc. that you see, that you really like and then put together a mood board from there. It's very difficult, when there's so much choice, to pin down exactly what you might want from a room and if you've got a collection of photographs, then spend some time looking at them in the rooms and then you'll be able to start to whittle it down to ones that you think are going to work in there.
Then it's time to personalise it, in terms of what colours you would like to see and how colours make you feel, but the best advice is probably to put together a mood board. Which is just an A3 piece of card and put paint samples, fabric samples, pictures out of catalogues and magazines on to the board so that you can get a really good feel of how the room is going to look. Because it's very difficult when you're in the store or looking online or in catalogues to really get a feel for how a room is going to come together and a mood board is a really great way to do that.
What tips have you got for decorating your home at Christmas time?
Again, lighting is very important. So think about having dimmer switches fitted, getting some extra lamps, or candles. It's all about creating an ambience at Christmas time and lighting is very important to that. Ofcourse, we all love the twinkly lights on the Christmas tree. So bringing in that sort of energy with candles is always great.
A good thing to do is, you want to feel very snuggly and cosy with the Christmas tree and over winter, so perhaps think about having two sets of accessories if your budget runs to it. So maybe you'll have your summertime accessories with cushions and throws and perhaps a whole new other set with a different colour palette for winter that are much thicker, much more textural and something that will really make you feel cosy at winter time and for Christmas.
So, you can bring in a whole new colour theme really which is quite nice and it it makes you feel like you've decorated the room when you've switched your accessories around for a new colour palette. Ofcourse, it's quite a good way in terms of budget, making you feel like you have almost entirely decorated.
You can buy really nice room stickers as well and large scale room stickers, that come off very easily, so they don't leave any residue on the wall, and you can get things like, snowflakes, christmas trees and reindeer, all those sort of things, particularly good if you've got a young family, that will really help to make a room feel festive.
Interior designer and TV presenter Julia Kendell is supporting isme.com’s home campaign to make your house more ‘you’ – launching a competition on www.thishomeisme.com
Femalefirst Taryn Davies
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