Interior decorating has been a bit of an obsession for 20 years. I recently decided to make my hobby my job in order to spend my time doing something I truly love. Friends and acquaintances often ask how I’ve put things together and where I get things from which also backed the idea to start a business.
As a teenager living in London I’d travel to obscure addresses in school holidays to check out products. Elle Decoration was a bit of a bible to me. I still have a cool old metal Filofax i bought from Muji with rainbow coloured paper from the Conran Shop that my earliest interior design thoughts are scribbled in. For some reason it seemed too simple to start an actual business. Maybe that’s because the best things are (simple).
As a student i spent most of my loans in habitat and am a nutter for flea markets. I studied languages and spent a year in Belgium which has crazy flea markets full of fierce 60’s and 70’s finds (as well all manor of tat).
My hobby has been indulged by moving house frequently (or room / flat then finally house to be precise). I’ve also kept the fires burning by creating dream-folders, a kind of analogue version of Pinterest… reams of ideas and inspirations from books and magazines which I often delve into it.
When moving I always tried to create a home and fill spaces with things I have a connection to rather than just work through a list of things and buy the cheapest, most accessible version of each item.
The love of interior design comes from being a home lover and creating a lovely, sensual place to be. It’s good to care about what you fill your space with. Things should last a long time, be worth keeping in your family or saving up for, or just speak to you in some way.
If you are into interior design I’m not sure if you ever truly finish your own place. Maybe you have to just accept you’ll either always be changing something, or constantly moving house.