My fashion is... all about mixing. I mix high end and low end. Being so busy and having no time to shop though, I wish I could wear my house instead of my clothes!
The best room in my house is... the basement because it’s an inside/outside room. We’ve taken out the exterior brick wall over the bottom two floors and put in a double–height wall of glass. The doors slide back so you’re almost in the garden.
I used to be afraid of colour... but then I started experimenting and got more confident. When we first moved in we had a completely white palette but then I painted one room in very dark grey and suddenly the other rooms were put to shame. Using dark colours makes a huge difference to how objects stand out. But you have to accent with brightly coloured accessories otherwise it looks really depressing. You need a bright punch to make it look cool.
A budget decorating tip is ... to make simple floating shelves out of cheap MDF, then paint them yourself the same colour as your walls so it blends into the colour scheme of the room. It looks like you’ve spent a fortune when you haven’t. Another thing I’ve done at home is a wall of ‘tongue and groove’ to add texture. It’s simple and brings an element of character into your space. That’s a lazy weekend thing to do.
Lighting is... totally transformative. What light can do in creating atmosphere and shadow is amazing. We find that people never seem to have enough light. You should play on shadow and light and nooks of cosiness. The key is to have lots of different levels of lighting – floor lights, candle lights, firelights, and table lights. In one of my rooms, which is very small, I have nine lights (all low wattage). It creates interest and intrigue.
People are ignoring trends... at the moment. It’s a lot more eclectic. You can almost put anything together these days, which is a trend I’ve been following for ages. I also like playing with scale, for example, in a small room having a really huge light or an oversized rug. It is important to be confident with what you love rather than following the seasons. It’s about mixing and matching as much as you can and holding it together with texture or colour.
My book A Girl’s Guide to Decorating... is a style guide of how to turn your space into a hip home without spending lots of money, which reflects what I’ve done at home. The building part of my home took up so much money that I had to be creative when it came to the inside.
I am inspired by the work of... Kelly Wearstler and Jonathan Adler. Their style is very eclectic, colourful and unusual. Adler plays with colour and scale and proportions and Wearstler puts things together that you wouldn’t usually see together.
I used to work... on the picture desk for Terence Conran’s publishing company, Conran Octopus, researching images for his interior books. That’s where my love of interiors started.
Travel is... always a huge inspiration for me. As I’ve got older and travelled more I’ve got more confident in what I do. I’ve learnt to follow my eye which loves the unusual and over–scaled.
Atelier Abigail Ahern products are available from design boutique.
