THE BASIC PRINCIPLE

“Imagine falling in love with somebody, marrying them, buying a home together and the first thing they hang up is a live-laugh-love sign” 

So goes the meme...

Now, unfortunately I can’t take credit for the above, but I do stand shoulder to shoulder with the poignant author who first penned those words. 

Granted the example of live, laugh, love at this point, I would hope, is an obvious no-no when it comes to design, but somehow, the likes of under filled bay windows, overbearing kitchen islands, and wallpapered feature walls, still make it into homes the world over. When it comes to interior design, some things are just basic AF and should be avoided at all costs.

But what constitutes being called "basic" and how should we know when something (or us) is in fact letting the side down? 

Ultimately, it’s simply about missing the mark. While personal tastes in design are as varied as the target market for TFL, I truly believe that there are some fundamental rights and wrongs when it comes to interior design. 

I will be the first to admit, littered in my early days as a designer is the odd faux pas, so I'm not saying I'm perfect. But having worked in high-end residential design for nearly a decade, where you are literally being paid to avoid the banal, I am a firm believer that you can make anything look good, or better, if you follow the rules of balance and composition. Double that up with a stringent avoidance for all things "basic" and you're mostly there. 

It may not be all the way there, but why make the same mistakes others have already paid me to make? 

This isn't me standing on a soap-box slating the things I don't like, but there is a lot of info out there that eager interior design wannabes are lapping up with no recipe to follow, and frankly, are being lead down a very dark and lonely path. (probably with neon live-laugh-love sign to light the way)

The musings here may in fact just be drops in the proverbial ocean of the complexities of interior design, but the idea behind this blog is to use examples of high end, expensive and well considered interior design, from the world's leading designers, to illustrate some of the basic principles that the typical home owner tends to get wrong.  At the end of it all, if that means there is just one homeowner out there that opts to forgo a different colour feature wall in every room, I will have done my bit for mankind. 

So stay tuned and in the time being, just live, laugh, love.

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