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  • HPH231 : How to design an interior for a modern home – with Gabrielle Blackman

    HPH231 : How to design an interior for a modern home – with Gabrielle Blackman

    Interior Designer Gabrielle Blackman explains how, when planned properly, good interior design should take the owner’s personality and stamp it on the house.

     

    Interview with Gabrielle Blackman

    Gabrielle Blackman trained as an artist and found that with interior design she was able to combine that with her passion for being hands-on, busy and working with people. Her career has seen her work in interior yacht design as well as with some of the leading designers around, before taking the step of starting her own company.

     

    The line between interior design and architecture can cause on-site conflict

    The use and practicality of the house can sometimes come into conflict with the architecture.

    “So, an architect might want a floor-to-ceiling piece of beautiful glass, so you’re celebrating the space of the room and all of this wonderful natural light, and then I come in and say, ‘where are we going to put the furniture? How are we going to store stuff?’”

    Gabrielle explains that there is always a bit of give and take involved and often some heated discussions, but it’s a healthy and robust relationship which as a result produces the right house for the client.

    “But we get something amazing at the end of the day because it’s two skills that slightly butt heads, but you create something beautiful.”

     

    It should feel full of personality, be incredibly practical and look amazing

    Gabrielle believes that a good interior designer should be able to interpret their clients’ personality and stamp it on a building. What is also important is that the client feels immediately natural and comfortable within it, and not as though they are in a show home. That is something that comes about through the collaboration process.

    “All the details that might be overlooked by exhausted clients who are under a barrage of decision making every day and having to deal with contractors, an interior designer should be able to come in fresh and fight for the extra details that makes it so lovely.”

     

    The initial process is the same for every job: space planning and layout

    Gabrielle has developed this process and follows it for every job, no matter how large or small, traditional Georgian home or new build Passivhaus, and it is based around space planning and layout. She builds a picture by understanding her clients’ needs, finding out: where the furniture is going to go, how they are going to use each room, whether they have children or pets, whether they work from home, etc.

    So the basis of any good design has to start with the layout, ie the way the space is going to be used, how people are going to move around the house, and what they need to keep in each room.

    From there, a plan can be produced for the electrical, lighting, plumbing and heating layout. This is why it is essential to consult the interior designer at such an early stage, before the trades are involved, so that radiators aren’t already in the place where a TV or sofa needs to go!

     

    Create mood boards to develop ideas

    Once the practicalities of how the house is going to work, the room layouts, and plumbing and electrical plans are sorted, the next step is to think about how you want it to look.

    Gabrielle often uses Pinterest to communicate with clients and create mood boards for each room. She creates concept boards which are linked to the Pinterest boards, and which are then linked to the actual products. For clients making their own purchases this provides a quick and easy way of shopping for their selected items.

    Even if you’re not using an interior designer, Gabrielle recommends using Pinterest to create your own mood boards by finding inspirational images that you love and then start pulling out the key elements from that to make your board.

    Gabrielle tends to use one big inspirational image that gives the feel of the room, and then surrounds it with the actual items that are going to be put into the room, ie a table, a lamp etc.

     

    The whole house should have a united feel

    That’s not to say it all needs to be painted the same colour, but running the same flooring through each floor can create that feeling for example.

    In Ben’s house, Gabrielle noted how the snug needed to have a different feel, ie the winding down and having space for the evening, as opposed to the natural light of the large open spaces. For this they used a dramatically different paint colour to make it feel cosy and cocooning.

     

    Don’t compromise on floors and doors

    With any project it is important to set your budget and work out what you want to prioritise as early as possible. If the budget is going to be tight, Gabrielle recommends making sure that you have a good floor and doors – the bones of the house – so you have no regrets later on, even if that means having basic or little furniture to start with as that can always be built up over time.

    In Ben’s house they chose a beautiful herringbone floor which becomes a feature in the open, uncluttered space.

     

    “Working with fantastic trades will make a house”

    Gabrielle suggested getting bespoke storage made, and Ben was fortunate in that the building company he used had very talented carpenters.

    “What I love about bespoke joinery is it will never go out of fashion. If you do some really beautifully made but simple built-in shelves and cupboards, you need that storage anyway. Every family needs more storage than you can ever imagine, and cupboards are just the source of all happiness, so that’s great. And having them beautifully made, it just means you’ll never be bored of them.”

     

    The right interior designer should add value to your project

    Gabrielle stresses that it is important to choose an interior designer who you feel you can communicate with, and who understands you. There should also be a fee structure that you’re comfortable with, for defined chunks of work, and not just an open cheque book. It is something that needs to be budgeted for like every other part of the build.

     

    The finishing touches can be equally fun and stressful

    Gabrielle has joined Ben at the house for working out the finishing touches. She likens this time as being at the end of the marathon when everyone’s a bit tired. The house needs to have the final styling and dressing which is where the interior designer can give help and reinforcement. Together they have searched through Ben’s existing belongings to see if there is anything that, coming at it with fresh eyes, they might have forgotten about which actually will look wonderful in their new home. And then it’s just a case of deciding on the few more pieces needed to finish it off.

    Some images taken before and after Gabrielle’s visit

     

    Key tips:

    • It’s your space – don’t be afraid to make unpopular decisions.
    • If you’re being pressured into something because it’s easier for the build, or if in your heart it doesn’t really feel like you, then stick to your guns.
    • Measure everything!
    • Be confident in your tastes – you are the expert on you.
    • Make sure you prepare: get your mood boards and layouts done before you even meet your builder for the first time. Including everything such your chosen doors and floors will mean a more accurate quote.

     

    Find out more

    Visit the website of Gabrielle Blackman

    Follow Gabrielle on Twitter

     

    Transcript

    Download a transcript of the interview with Gabrielle Blackman.

     

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  • HPH198 : Creating an interior that works perfectly with the exterior – with Emily Bizley

    HPH198 : Creating an interior that works perfectly with the exterior – with Emily Bizley

    Interior designer Emily Bizley explains how she and her husband, an architect, co-designed their RIBA shortlisted self-build home.

    Interview with Emily Bizley

    Emily wanted to be an interior designer since she was very small, but ended up studying French and Psychology at university before deciding to go to Chelsea Art College to pursue her childhood dream. After gaining more qualifications, Emily worked for architects to get some experience. From there she went to work for an interior designer in London, and now has her own practice based in Somerset.

    The interior shouldn’t be an afterthought

    If design decisions aren’t guided by “a bigger idea about what the building is supposed to be”, there’s a risk that the interior and exterior won’t be coherent. Emily explains they wanted to build a timber house that was sympathetic to and connected with the surrounding countryside and nearby agricultural buildings.

    She says she’s visited a lot of timber clad houses that look fabulous on the outside but whose interiors are “a crashing disappointment because it’s all white plasterboard with twinkly down lighters and absolutely no atmosphere.” She finds it surprising these houses aren’t made of wood both inside and out, like those she and her husband visited in Switzerland.

    Ask yourself how you want each room to feel

    Emily and her husband both did a lot of sketching for their self-build. They focused much more on how they wanted a room to feel, rather than how it would look. Sketches of room scenes helped them imagine their lives in the new house and captured the desired atmosphere.

    Design the interior and exterior in partnership with one another

    Focusing on how they wanted the kitchen to feel took them through a series of questions; the answers defined the design inside and out. For example, thinking about what they wanted to look at while eating breakfast, and where the sun would be coming in, suggested the size and position of the windows. But then they had to consider how this would affect the elevation outside, and the design needed tweaking to get to the point where it worked inside and out.

    Emily says they decided to have their sitting room separate to (but adjoining) the open plan kitchen dining area. They designed this room to be a half level up with the ceiling following the roofline down, making it a cosy snug. She explains the materials they used are the same, it’s just that the space has been slightly manipulated to create a different atmosphere.

    Think about how natural light will reach all the spaces

    Emily’s house has light from all sides. She says it is really important to ensure that the darkest parts of the house still get natural light. They incorporated skylights into the design for their self-build, to avoid any “dark dingy corners”.

    Create interesting relationships between spaces, inside and out

    The sloping site presented challenges. Emily explains, “A developer house would just be plonked on stilts at the front to make the site flat, but then you lose the relationship to the garden”, adding, “We didn’t want that feeling of being on the upper floor and feeling really disconnected from the garden.” Instead, they dug down to enable the house to sit back in the hillside and decided to go for an upside down layout, taking care to create access to the garden from different places.

    Their self-build uses internal glazing to create interesting relationships within the house – the rooms aren’t “a series of boxes with doors”. Emily says that internal glazing was something she and her husband had always liked about French houses and had been on their list of things they’d wanted to incorporate into their designs.

    Be generous with some spaces to create the right atmosphere

    Sometimes it’s worth sacrificing a bit of space to be generous elsewhere. In the case of Emily’s self-build, the design for the lower floor incorporated a wider hallway. She doesn’t see this as wasted space as it avoids the feeling of going downstairs into a rabbit warren of bedrooms.

    Restrict the palette to avoid a “mishmash of everything”

    There are a lot of options when it comes to interior finishes. Emily says they were quite disciplined in having just a few ideas for their interior and carrying those through with some rigour. She describes the house as having “two quite distinct overall sorts of atmosphere”. The rooms are either lined with oak or painted plywood; no walls are just plastered. And some of the ceilings are crafted from rough-sawn softwood and painted.

    A joiner made their bespoke kitchen and he sourced the wood from the same supplier used for oak lining the walls. Emily comments, “The kitchen is intended to look like the walls, and blend in.”

    Think about furniture early on as it impacts the design

    Although Emily believes it’s good to let ideas develop and to be able to respond in an organic way, it’s also important to have an overall idea when it comes to furniture. She uses their veranda as an example, explaining that it is pretty much square in plan, but as the house is not a square box the corner of the deck intentionally gets wider to accommodate the table and chairs.

    It also helps to know what you’re planning to do furniture-wise to produce electrical plans. For example, do you want to sit in a particular well-lit corner and read? The position of an extractor fan in the kitchen is another important consideration – what type of cooking do you tend to do, and does that require extraction directly above the hob?

    Factor in storage during the design stage

    Emily comments, “If we did decide to put everything away, there would be a space for everything.” The big store at the back houses the plant, store and utility rooms. They also incorporated really big wardrobes into the kids’ bedrooms and Emily and her husband have a lot of storage space in their dressing room.

    Other tips for self-builders

    • Collate images of anything you really like into a folder
    • Have some clear ideas and follow them through – don’t get distracted
    • Think about how materials and texture can achieve the atmosphere you want 

    Watch a 2-minute video about their home

    Find out more

    Visit the website of Emily Bizley Interior Design

    Follow Emily Bizley on Instagram

    Visit the website of Prewitt Bizley Architects

    Transcript

    Download a transcript of the interview with Emily Bizley

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  • HPH171 : An eco interior designer in the home – with Elina Grigoriou

    HPH171 : An eco interior designer in the home – with Elina Grigoriou

    Elina Grigoriou from Grigoriou Interiors talks about design, wellbeing and sustainability, and the role of interior designers.

    Interview with Elina

    Elina and her sister founded Grigoriou Interiors in 2010. Their vision is “to create interior spaces of beauty and function that look after people and our planet”. A strong theme of sustainability is used in their branding and website, to educate people on the concept of sustainable interiors and to attract like-minded clients.

    Interior design is about understanding how space affects you

    Interior design involves looking specifically at the spaces that fall within the floor slab, ceiling slab and external walls. Elina explains: “From the moment you step into a building until you come back out of it, everything you touch, everywhere you interact within that space is forming the interior and the way that has been intentionally designed to support your life.”

    Design can influence how well you sleep or eat

    Wellbeing is a big issue right now, and Elina finds that a lot of people don’t understand the effect their space has on them. It is often only when they start talking about how they behave in an interior that they slowly start to realise how the space is informing some of their behaviours, or may be stopping them from behaving in a certain way.

    For example, the shape of a table will affect how people communicate. Are you sitting opposite each other at a square or rectangular table, or around one with no sides? Elina suggests that dinner with your in-laws might be nicer at a round table!

    And patterns tend to help people to relax. Elina explains that we find them reassuring because we trust things that are repeated. Movement is associated with asymmetry, whereas a balanced style promotes calmness.

    An interior designer can help create a living environment

    There are different motivations for hiring an interior designer. Elina says some people feel they should hire one because they’re ‘supposed to’ or to ‘keep up with the Joneses’, adding the image-conscious association often linked with interior design is not helpful.

    A better reason would be someone wanting to create a home that feels like a home, where they can entertain guests, work, and allow the space to affect them in a positive way.

    Elina guides clients through a decision-making process to make choices they will be happy with. Interiors contribute to the relationships people have in their homes, and she wants that contribution to be a positive one.

    We can better understand and re-use existing buildings

    One step is to establish whether the original architecture assumed a particular ‘user journey’ from the moment you walk through the door. What kind of volumes and spatial proportions did the designer envisage for the interior spaces? If this hasn’t been considered, you can get quite structural: reforming spaces and opening or closing up floors.

    Self-builds can get it right from the beginning

    Unlike commercial and residential developments, which tend to be quite ‘vanilla’, the self-build ethos creates an opportunity to engage in the design process and make a home fit for purpose.

    With new builds, Elina would recommend involving an interior designer at the earlier stages, when forming the architecture and considering what kind of lifestyle you want to enjoy in the building. That’s the time to start discussing the internal spaces, views, etc.

    A detailed brief gives a clear basis to start from        

    Elina recalls a previous project where the husband wanted to have lovely conversations with his daughter in the living room. She comments that this is the kind of brief they can respond to and believes this is the right kind of objective for a home.

    Grigoriou Interiors create what they call a user profile. Every question they ask of each client in the design process goes back to this profile, gradually informing how the space needs to be and documenting where they started from and why. Typical questions might include:

    • What’s the geographical location like?
    • What’s the typical climate?
    • Is it an existing or new building?
    • How many bedrooms do you want?
    • Do you entertain at home?
    • Do you work out at home?
    • Do you like lots of fresh air in your interior?
    • Do you like a lot of natural daylight coming in?
    • How are you going to clean it?
    • How long do you want to live there?
    • Will you be there throughout the year?
    • Do you want to rent it out?

    Shorter purchasing cycles mean greater impact on the environment

    Architects consider lifespans of 20-30 years or more, and these timeframes inform product and material decisions. However the average interior lifecycle is just five to ten years.

    Elina says it falls to designers to ensure that what they specify is sustainable in the first place. Grigoriou Interiors talk with their clients to understand where the environmental impacts are going to happen from the client’s own behaviour in a space. For example, working from home may mean longer periods of heating and lighting. Establishing this in the brief, at the start, allows them to create a sustainable interior and suggest certain materials and layouts based on how the space will be used.

    Beauty is very important when it comes to interiors

    Elina explains that the perception of beauty is personal to everyone’s individual conditions at a point in time. So she has to work with clients to understand what they consider beautiful and what kind of look they want. Something minimalist? Or a bit of texture? Do they have some lovely crafts, perhaps from their travels?

    Existing furniture may not be suitable for your new home

    If you are moving to a different sized house, Elina suggests that some of the furniture you currently own – such as the dining table or soft seating – may be too big or small for the new interiors. Similar spaces may allow you to re-use existing furniture but it’s worth questioning which pieces may need to be recycled.

    A new build, especially a passivhaus, presents an opportunity to minimise or even eliminate the introduction of pollutants. Emissions from materials and furniture will affect the quality of air inside the house so, for example, an existing sofa will likely have chemical foams. Elina is excited to see alternatives such as coconut fillers becoming available.

    Deciding not to re-use doesn’t mean throwing away

    If you can’t use some or all of your existing furniture, there are plenty of quick and easy ways to pass it on before moving. Freecycle and Preloved are just two websites and Elina says more options are emerging all the time.

    Interior design advice doesn’t have to cost the earth

    Even with a limited budget, it’s still possible to engage the services of an interior designer. The key is bringing them in at the right time to get their feedback on architectural proposals. Elina describes it as having them dip in for a day or two to review the proposals, give you some feedback and possibly pose some questions.

     

    Find out more

    Visit the website of Elina Grigoriou

    Follow Grigoriou Interiors on Twitter

    Transcript

    Download a transcript of the interview with Elina Grigoriou

    Please connect with me