A consistent, considered and cohesive approach to interiors, with Darren Palmer

It’s amazing how much you can pack into three hours. I left last night’s Coco Republic Design School session with Darren Palmer feeling three things: impressed (by Darren’s amazing work), inspired (to make my own home even nicer employing his expert tips) and just generally excited (because that’s how I get when I’m around anything interiors, especially surrounded by other interiors addicts!).

It was a full house for the session (there’s another tomorrow) which was all about how to work with your home to show it in its best light, covering the most common problems, offering solutions and advice. And Darren made it a really enjoyable experience by being a natural, warm presenter with a sense of humour who shared countless before and afters (you can never have too many before and afters in my opinion; interiors or weightloss!) and answered many questions.

Now I couldn’t possibly share it all here in one blog post (which is why I’m going to do one a day for the rest of this week) and I’m going to pick out what I took most from it and hope you find it useful too.

You know what my biggest issue with decorating my home is? IMPATIENCE. This is why I rush into choosing and buying things, only to get them home and find they don’t quite work, or love them for two weeks and then want a completely different scheme (we don’t talk about the orange bedroom anymore). So although I found it hard to hear, I totally agree with Darren’s advice to put a good deal of planning into your interiors before you even start parting with any cash. He threw around words like focus, control and EDITING which are hard for a girl who wants everything done by yesterday to hear, but I have to admit he is so right and had I been at this session last year I could have saved myself a lot of time, money and frustration (not to mention arguments with the boyfriend about wasting money).

We’ve all been there. There is SO much choice you don’t know where to begin. Darren says: “The more constraints you can put on an interior the better. An interior can’t be all things to all people,” and adds: “it’s important to have a consistent, considered and cohesive approach to the items you choose.” My approach is so the opposite of that, I have to laugh. Sometimes I’ve got it terribly wrong. Other times I think I’ve been blessed by a bit of luck. Just when I thought Darren was already sounding way too serious, he says: “Be diligent, focused and controlled. It’s not that fun!” Spoilsport or what?!

He is absolutely right though isn’t he? How often have you wished you’d waited until you could afford the coffee table you really wanted or wished you hadn’t rushed into that ‘trendy’ colour scheme that really didn’t work for you in reality?

So, today’s lesson is patience and planning. Tune in tomorrow for some more fun stuff…

(Did I mention what a pleasure it was to finally meet Darren in real life?)