Making Over Your Home? Interior Designers Share Their Best Advice (And Where To Get Started) – New Zealand Herald

Never underestimate the power of your surroundings to make you feel good and elevate your life. Leanne Moore talks to interior design experts about the alchemy of carefully considered spaces.

The look: Janice Kumar-Ward is all about innovating the particular design process while staying true to her ethos — in order to create spaces that stand the test of time. Always pushing her craft forward with her visionary use of colour and exciting collaborations, she takes a highly personal approach to design, diving into the passions, personalities and lifestyle of her clients before embarking on a project.

Signature style: A creative powerhouse, Janice and her husband Julian Ward also produce the beautiful bespoke furniture and cabinetry collection Mr & Mrs Ward.

Design tips: Engage a designer early so decisions are well thought through rather than rushed. Also, you’ll get the designer a person want — there’s often a wait.

Be wary of selecting on-trend fixtures such as tapware — these are not easy to change, unlike bed linen, or even paint colours.

The appearance: Alex Fulton creates exciting areas saturated along with colour plus pattern. Her bold and unconventional — yet practical — designs attract the particular adventurous spirit. The AFD flavour also adds the twist associated with humour plus delight.

Signature design: Confident, bold and absolutely fearless use of color.

Design tips: Lock in a colour story. A limited colour palette gives consistency and acts as an easy reference when choosing and specifying products.

Push the limits. If you can’t find something you want, ask, alter or get it made. Long term, you will be happier that you made an effort to get exactly what you want.

Be super-organised. Have a document that lists the particular specifications in each room to keep tradies, architect, painters and suppliers updated plus on the same page. It becomes your go-to document for quick reference and recall of everything that goes into your project.

The look: Creative, cohesive, bespoke plus beautiful.

Signature style: Considered, calming, sophisticated and urbane.

Design tip: Create a holistic scheme that will tells the story from exterior to interior with colour, form or materiality.

The look: Seductive plus award-winning hospo interiors and sophisticated plus award-winning residential interiors.

Signature design: Pared-back glam, with evidence of experience in hospitality design in the social spaces of home projects, such as the introduction of booth seating to a kitchen.

Design suggestions: Go for quality materials that stand the test associated with time. I like to think our designs wear in, not really wear out. Use lighting to create different moods at different times of the day.

The look: Brings an English country house aesthetic to her work, after several years living and working in the particular UK.

Signature style: Charming, relaxed and atmospheric.

Style tips: A room always needs a bit of antique, mid-century or tat from a junk shop. Mixing old plus new will be so important, it adds a patina to your home that will can’t be manufactured.

Enjoy pattern! Upholstered furniture takes less meterage than curtains. Go mad and get the best a person can afford.

Avoid downlights and recessed ceiling lights whenever possible. Your home is not a hospital! Lamp illumination makes everyone look great, and you can take them with you when you move.

The particular most interesting interiors are made up of collections and layers that take time to build. I wholeheartedly believe that a room is never finished — one should always be adding to it.

The look: Creative force Katie Lockhart works around the world on interiors that are understated, yet striking in the same time. She has taken the girl extensive encounter as a good interior designer and assembled a collection of well-designed and well-made household goods that are available from her store Everyday Needs.

Signature style: Curate, edit and cut through the clutter.

Design tips: I think the inclusion of colour, whether it is through the base colour scheme (walls, floors, etc. ) or the furnishings, brings spirit plus warmth. We love low light in the evening, less overhead but more lamps.

The appearance: A dynamic design duo creating harmonious interiors that celebrate the art of layering.

Signature design: A flair for detail that provides character and makes their spaces feel like they’ve been there for a while.

Style tips: Scale up when it comes to rugs, lights, and artwork. So often people buy these items far too small. Your home can be instantly elevated whenever these pieces are the correct scale, if not oversized.

Consider which furniture pieces and surfaces will get heavy use (think family room sofas, kitchen benchtops) and put your own money into these. Think of them as an investment, plus balance them out along with smaller, a lot more cost-friendly items.

Avoid the particular temptation associated with ‘fast homewares’. These days there is no excuse with regard to a ‘throw away’ attitude when it comes in order to interiors. It’s no good regarding anyone, especially the planet.

Take your time hunting for unique pieces that really speak to you. It is still possible to pick up incredible parts at vintage and antique stores and auction houses. When these older pieces are mixed with newer items it produces personality plus a totally unique style that a person will love and enjoy for years in order to come.

The look: Interiors with the wow factor that look good and feel wonderful.

Signature design: Champions intended for decorative freedom and reimagined spaces that will lift the spirits of their clients.

Design ideas: Think regarding colours and textures that you like. They will show up in your clothing, within the things you have inside your house and even in the particular way a person wrap a birthday present.

When you walk into the room that you love, consider what this is about the space which you actually like. It might be the timber flooring or the particular marble countertop. Becoming conscious of the colours plus materials that will help a person feel calm or happy is a great place to start.

Hire an expert. That way, you’ll get a harmonious interior that has the perfect balance and visual weight of materiality, color, pattern and texture. Our job is like editing a book. We get our client’s ideas plus add or subtract to create stability and structure and the particular strongest feasible composition associated with those ideas.

The appearance: Engaging and clever areas that bring all sorts of pieces together, regardless of their provenance or monetary value, to create a visual commonality.

Signature style: Spaces that inspire wonder and stimulate thought.

Design guidelines: Never be a slave to a design trend. Mix old and pre-loved with contemporary. Art, art, art; there is no such thing as too much art. Make comfort a priority and carefully consider the flow between spaces.

The look: Artist, furniture dealer (Mid Century Swag) plus interior developer, Jodi Newnham has her own contemporary spin on mid-century modern that will produces magical interior moments.

Signature bank style: Californian Arts & Crafts aesthetic, with a hint of rustic Brutalism, and a modern-glam influence.

Design tips: There are generally five principles of style that help to create a successful space: proportion, balance, rhythm, harmony and emphasis. I particularly like rhythm. It’s based on the idea associated with the eye being able in order to travel the particular room by creating interest and reducing monotony.

You can do this by the use of repetition, whether that’s repeating shapes, colors or pattern. This helps the particular eye move from one object to the other. You can also produce a sense associated with rhythm by using objects in varying heights and sizes that may be arranged in either ascending or even descending type.

Harmony is the principle of creating a sense of relationship within objects or suggestions. For example, when displaying a group of artworks or items, consider regardless of whether they share something similar such as colour, size, shape or texture.

As well as these concepts, create a focal point — always have one show-stopper. Be it the gorgeous fireplace, an distinctive sideboard or even an amazing pendant lamp.

Lighting is important, layer it up. Floor lamps, table lamps, up lamps or wall sconces, as well as overhead lighting and task lighting. Lighting plays a crucial role in transforming the ambience of a space.