Here at House & Garden we see a great many projects that have been masterminded from beginning to end by an interior designer, resulting in beautiful, coherent houses that perfectly meet the needs and tastes of their inhabitants. It's the ideal way to employ an interior designer, but for those of us who can't commit to that level of service, it's still worth taking advice from someone who knows what they are talking about. Perhaps you're just working on one room at a time, perhaps you want to invest in some new furniture or change the colours, perhaps you need advice on choosing art. In such cases, consultations are the perfect way to go. Nicola Harding, whose work we have long admired for her inventive use of colour and her ability to blend the modern with the antique, is one of the designers who are now offering hourly consultations. I gave it a go to see just how much you can accomplish: here's what we got done.
The problem: how to bring a boxy, characterless bedroom to life
Modern flats present all sorts of decorative problems, with their boxy spaces, vast expanses of blank wall, plastic windows and lack of architectural features. I have been working on my 1970s flat in south-east London for a few years, but the bedroom never got much attention while there were bigger projects to do. I had a nice blind made for it (in Susan Deliss' pink ‘Tulip Rose’), painted it a colour (Farrow & Ball's Light Blue) that I thought didn't feel quite right for the space, put my rather rubbishy oak (or pretending to be oak) furniture in there (bed, chest of drawers, bedside table, hanging rail), and called it a day. It has always felt somewhat bare and cold in the daylight, and overall has a rather studenty vibe when it's about 20 years too late for that. There is also no built-in storage, which makes it all feel a bit chaotic. One of Nicola's first questions to her clients is always “how do you want your house to make you feel?” – I wanted warmth, calm, and the sense that I am perhaps about 15% more sophisticated than I actually am.
The solutions
“I don't think you need to repaint,” was one of Nicola's first remarks. I had sent over a few thoughts about my sticking points with the bedroom: the colour of the walls, which can feel too cool on a winter's day, was my biggest problem. “Sometimes people get hung up on one issue in their house, and they think if they fix that everything else will fall into place,” she continued. “But they're not always right, and in that case it's an interior designer's job to say so."
Instead of repainting, she advised “evolving the colour scheme” by adding in tones to help warm up the room, which has relatively low ceilings and one large window at the far end. “I would paint the ceiling the same colour so that you're not chopping the walls off where they meet the ceiling–that way you don't have that big expanse of white which detracts from the cosiness. And then I would change the woodwork colour, especially around the focal point of the window, and paint it an a warmer tone. One of my favourite colour combinations is blue and brown; brown really warms up blue, so I would try a brownish-pink on the window frames, something like Farrow & Ball's ‘Dead Salmon.'" Since I had been thinking about built-in wardrobes at the other end, Nicola recommended painting them in a similar, slightly more neutral shade, Farrow & Ball’s ‘Jitney’.
Once we had established these main colours, she suggested that some fabrics and accessories that featured yellow might make a good addition, and I could instantly see how much more cheerful the room would look with yellow as an accent. A jolly fabric headboard covered in block-printed yellow flowers, and a cheerful pink and yellow rug from Weaver Green, who make affordable rugs from recycled plastic, were two of the things on Nicola's Pinterest board that I would never have been brave enough to pick, but which I now feel I can't live without.
Having only ever shoved some pretty basic high street furniture into this room, and done the bare minimum with textiles, I was delighted to have some recommendations about how to bring some variety and depth to the room. “I think having objects with a story, objects that you connect with, are fundamental to creating a sense of home,” Nicola emphasised. “You can form connections with art and with antiques because they come with a story.” If I was going to commit to a wall of shiny new built in wardrobes, there needed to be something older and more characterful nearby. “A bit of antique wood will be a nice foil for all those painted finishes,” she explained, directing me to a few surprisingly affordable early and mid-20th century oak chests of drawers, low enough to serve as a bedside table. “These pieces tend to have really good quality workmanship, and they have lovely, simple lines, so they're very easy to mix with other things, and they don't feel overbearing in a small space. So then you could go back to a painted, contemporary piece for the second bedside table."
But the easiest way to add character, as Nicola stressed, is to fill the walls with art. I only have a few pictures on the walls in my bedroom, but am now firmly persuaded that adding more is the easiest thing I can do to transform the space. “I would put as much budget as you can into that,” advised Nicola. “If you have a big blank wall, say at the foot of the bed, that's a good place for a gallery wall. Gather all the various bits that mean something to you, and add in a few more pieces for colour, and you'll love waking up and looking at that every morning.” She passed on a few favourite sources, including Cramer & Bell's CB Curates, which has a stylish selection of prints, and recommended their collaboration with Hormazd Narielwalla as a piece she'd love to see on my walls.
If it already seems like this was a lot of advice to offer in an hour, there was actually plenty more. My shopping list also includes bigger lamps and more cushions, which by themselves could make a considerable impact in what is currently a faintly monastic space.
Would we recommend?
100% yes. We all spend so much time in our houses that it becomes absolutely essential to have some sensible advice from a professional with a trained eye. At £600 for an hour (the rate goes down if you book more than one hour, and you can also talk to Associate Designer Kath for £400 ) it might be a bit of an investment for those who are unused to working with an interior designer, but just think of the kind of money you can easily waste on false starts when decorating. I found it hugely reassuring to have Nicola say that some things are fine as they are, and then point out her priorities for changing things. It's also immensely useful to come away with a Pinterest board of pieces and sources you might never have thought of yourself. The only difficult thing now is resisting the temptation to book in another session for every room in the flat.
Book a consultation with Nicola or Kath at nicolaharding.com. Nicola and her team also run monthly day-long workshops on interior design at their Queens Park studio. The next available one, “Homing Instinct: Nix’s complete guide to the creative process of designing your home” takes place on April 26 and costs £650.
