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Styling your home: getting the icing on the cake right!

September 10, 2020 1 Comment

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Styling is what Emma Blomfield calls “the fun bit” of interiors! And it’s definitely the case that a few styling tricks can totally lift your space. We’re big on homes being unique reflections of the people who live in them, and styling has the power to give every home more personality.

Today, the Sydney-based stylist, designer and decorator, is sharing some of her top tips; things that everyone can have a go at, styling ideas you may not have thought of, and some simple rules to follow.

“It’s different to decorating as decorating consists of selecting the big ticket items like sofas, coffee tables, beds, sideboards and other larger furniture items,” says Emma, author of Home and Keeping House. “You can also have a lot of fun with decorating when choosing fabrics, timber tones and textures as well as actually placing the furniture out in the room. But styling is arranging the smaller, more moveable pieces. Think candles, books, trays, crystals, coasters, trinkets, boxes and other decorative items.”

Emma sees any flat surface as an excuse to “style up a storm”! It could be the top of a bar cart styled with attractive liquor bottles, a coffee table with a tray of nice decorative items or a hall table in the entry way with pretty trinkets and photo frames. 

“A home with no deliberate styling is going to feel a little sterile, like no one lives there! The styling adds character and personality. It gives little nods to who lives there, where they’ve travelled and collected items from, or what they’ve been given for significant milestones in their lives.”

Get it right however, and Emma says your home will feel cosy, welcoming and intriguing. “You want your guests to come over and want to explore all the corners of your home because there are interesting things to look at everywhere. Those little elements tell stories and hold many amazing memories, ready to be recollected.”

Styling is also a great way to carry a theme from room to room, giving your home a more cohesive feel. “You don’t have to rely on a colour palette to do this,” Emma says. “For example, use trays to house some cute decorative items collected on your holiday to Paris in one room and then another tray in the next room with photos of your Paris trip so you carry your lovely memories into the other rooms of the house.”

While some people say it’s nothing more than fluffing cushions and not at all essential, Emma says styling is what sets your house apart from an Airbnb or rental property and shows that real people live there. “It’s an essential part of bringing a home together for its occupants. Those styling elements are often handed down to the next generation as heirlooms like teacups and saucers or little crystal figurines.” 

So, do you need to call in a professional like Emma? “No! You just need to have an eye for collecting a few little meaningful things from your life. Most people can do that!”

So, where to start?

“Using trays to collate the trinket-y things really helps collate them all without the styling looking messy or unfinished. When styling a bedside table, a coaster for your water glass, a ring dish, an attractive box of tissues and a candle are all you need to create a pretty vignette,” Emma says.

“When creating a ‘shelfie’, use height and scale to create a cute display. Mix tall skinny objects with short squat objects so there’s some interest with the items on display and they aren’t all at the same height. Vary the textures too to create interest.”

You don’t need to go shopping for new decor either, although that’s always fun! “Look around your house for inspiration. You might find something in the back of your desk drawer that reminds you of the fun you had at university or a marble your son gave you when he was a child. They don’t have to be expensive items. In fact, often the cheapest items hold the most meaning and are therefore the most interesting to talk about when guests ask you the meaning behind them.

“Objects from your travels are often inexpensive but meaningful and fun objects to have on display. Or even found objects like a bowl of attractive feathers or sea urchins found on a Christmas holiday.”

If you do want to treat yourself to something new for your vignette, Emma suggests a fancy candle, candle sticks, small brass dishes, room sprays in nice bottles, snow globes, coffee table books or small photo frames as great options.

And there are some styling rules which never go out of fashion: “The odds rule is an age old styling trick. Grouping objects on your coffee table or dining table centrepiece in threes or fives is more cohesive-looking than groupings of four or six. There’s probably some science (or feng shui) behind why!”

For more about Emma

Emma is illustrated throughout
Create a home with this new illustrated interiors book!
Having enjoyed at least eight homes in her lifetime and spent a childhood globetrotting (she lived in Japan, Hong Kong and Sydney), interior stylist Emma Blomfield is perhaps better placed than…

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Australian made bathroomware is seriously impressi Australian made bathroomware is seriously impressive!

The new @studio.xox ONLY sells Australian brands. Like @nood_co coloured basins, lead-free eco brass from @faucetstrommen and @lindseywherrett's  ceramic basins made by hand in Tassie.

And as for their Sydney showroom (they also sell online): WOW.

See and read more on the blog now via link in bio.

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#creatingbeautifulspaces #homestylingdesign
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I'm THRILLED to be an ambassador for the brand new I'm THRILLED to be an ambassador for the brand new @madeinaustshow in Sydney this August.

🦘🐨Forget every tacky association you ever had about touristy Australian made and prepare to see a showcase of the best of home, lifestyle, fashion and beauty made right here. If the pandemic has made you appreciate buying local even more, this is for you.

It's the first business to business trade event connecting retailers with Australian made products to champion our local makers🙏

Apply to exhibit or find out more at their website, via their bio, now!

Are YOU buying more Australian made post covid?

#madeinaustralia #australianmade #aussiemade #aussiedesign
Do I recommend a timber vanity top? A big fat NOP Do I recommend a timber vanity top?

A big fat NOPE! 💧 

Which is why we have recently covered ours with a Caesarstone top (thanks to @justinplace_sydney for the advice and supply) and the sweet RELIEF of not having to worry about this high traffic area anymore, I'm telling you!🤗

Doesn't matter what they tell you or how many times it's sealed, I'm not sure it's a great idea in a room which is so, well, wet!

I love having the warmth of timber in the bathroom and it's a beautiful piece, but timber on the top? Never again.

Ours probably lasted a year (if that) before it started to go downhill (and we want a good decade out of a bathroom, right?!). 2.5 years on, everything else in this bathroom looks virtually brand new and the water marked vanity top was really letting the side down and making me sad!

But I'm so pleased with this solution, I have to say! Took the plumber less than an hour to remove the sink, install the top and connect the sink back up. We didn't need to move the tap and it isn't too close to the basin.

The kids are allowed to brush their teeth and wash their hands (liquid soap 🥴) in here again and I can leave my hair straightener on there with gay abandon 😆

The reflective surface (which I can clean with whatever I like!💪🏻) brightens the room up too!

Next week I'll tell you what I really think of my brass tile trim too 😉

#interiorsaddictbathroomreno2 #interiorsaddictfamilyhomereno #timbervanity
Is there a more decadent and delicious soup than F Is there a more decadent and delicious soup than French onion?

I think not!

Grab the recipe on the blog this morning via link in bio.
Get to know me! I haven't done one of these in YE Get to know me!

I haven't done one of these in YEARS so there's possibly thousands of you who don't know my back story. Here's a few things you may not know about me!

✔️ I'm English 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 and I moved here (just for one year) back in 2008😆 

✔️ I can't end the day without a bath, even if I get home really late or on a really hot day. It's a mental health thing and my happy place. 🛁 

✔️ Before becoming a blogger and running my own small business, I was a journalist from the age of 18. My favourite news gathering times were as a newspaper crime reporter (bit different to interiors!) 📓 

✔️ I once worked at New Scotland Yard in London 🚔 

✔️I had an interview at Oxford (didn't get in!) but chose not to go to uni at all after being offered a job on the local paper #universityoflife 😁

✔️ My mum died when I was 3, I have an excellent dad and one sister (younger) in the UK ❤️ 🇬🇧 

✔️ At school, my favourite subject was French 🇫🇷 and I was head girl 🤓🤓

✔️ I'm addicted to ☕️ , long hot baths and💄 (been wearing it since I was about 14!)

✔️ I'm not a phonecall person and will never ever pick up an unknown number. Ever. They can leave a message 😁

✔️ My favourite cuisine is Japanese 🍣 🍜 and Damian and I honeymooned in Tokyo and Venice 

✔️ I have zero design qualifications. I just started blogging about my passion, which is trying to persuade everyone to #heartyourhome That was 11 years ago...

✔️ My favourite tipple is a good GnT or🍷 

✔️ Cheesy as it sounds, 💁‍♀️being a mum is my absolute biggest joy in life 🧒👦

✔️ I will never give up my old school paper diary! Has to be A5 and week to view 📖 

✔️ My official surname isn't Bishop. I kept my maiden name for work after I got married but changed it for everything else. Often confuse myself!

✔️ I didn't get my Ps until I was 37 and I'm still a terrible parker 😯 🅿️

Hope you feel like you know me a bit better 😘

📸 @vanlowvanlow
Blue, green or lilac? 🎨 @nood_co coloured con Blue, green or lilac? 🎨 

@nood_co coloured concrete basins is a great Aussie business success story. Although co founder Matt Di Costa first found fame as one half of Matt and Kim on The Block, he hasn't relied on this to build his brand.

“We are very honoured to have been a part of The Block, and all they have done for us. I am, however, a believer in letting the product take centre stage,” he says.

Read our interview with Matt via link in bio now.

🙏Share your favourite colour basin in the comments!

#colouredconcrete #noodco #colouredbasin #blockheads #the block #bathroomtrends2022

Pic 1 by @naibudesign_ and 2 by @twostyleinteriors
I'd love to see more colour in Aussie interiors! I'd love to see more colour in Aussie  interiors! 🎨 

At the end of the day though, it's a matter of personal taste. I love pops of colour but it's not for everyone. 

We couldn't resist featuring this Canadian house tour today. The amazing Kelly Green  hutch (swipe) was an upcycled $200 find 🤗

Head over to the blog via link in bio to see the rest including one of the best playrooms we've seen in ages!

Project by @in.house.design
📸 @philcrozier
Create an unexpected city oasis with an emphasis o Create an unexpected city oasis with an emphasis on light and nature.

That was the brief for the conversion of a corner shop and a warehouse bakery into a luxury family home in Sydney's Newtown. And how about the library?!

Take the tour of this very special @annacarindesign project on the blog now, via link in bio.

Pic: @justinalexanderphoto
The things that excite me as a 40 year old 🤭 N The things that excite me as a 40 year old 🤭

None of us enjoy laundry (OK, there are a few of you out there who do. Weird!) but we have to do it. And often. So if your laundry bin can be as good looking, functional and space saving as this, then why wouldn't you?!

I've lost track of how many baskets I've thrown out because they've gone soggy or mouldy. They look pretty, sure, but they're not fit for purpose and they're often messy and overflowing.

Here's what I love about his @brabantia_australia one:

✔️ ventilation holes
✔️ no need to remove the lid for small items plus it hides your dirty laundry from view
✔️ easily removable and washable inner laundry bag that velcros back on 
✔️ corrosion resistant so fine in bathroom or laundry 
✔️ Brabantia make things as sustainably as possible
✔️ compact, sleek, European design
✔️ 10 year warranty
✔️ tall and skinny so takes up less floor in my tiny laundry

The Rolls Royce of laundry bins? I think so 👌🏻

TOLD you this was going to be exciting!

Now I need to know, do you have your laundry basket in the bathroom, the laundry, every bedroom? We used to have one in each bedroom but moved to the laundry-only situation which I much prefer (one for colours and one for whites). My boys know to put their used clothes in the bin in the laundry each night and they're 7 and 3!  #raisingfuturehusbands

#gifted
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About Jen Bishop

Jen Bishop is our owner and publisher and an experienced journalist and editor. Interiors Addict has been her full-time job for more than 8 years. She is married to Damian and mum to Sebastian and Charlie.

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Comments

  1. AvatarAishwarya says

    September 11, 2020 at 1:21 am

    One of the best blogs that I have across so far with a perfect outline on the suggestions and tips of styling your home like a pro.

    Reply

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