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No one tells you that the way you live your life completely changes when you’re an interior stylist.
It happens so slowly you hardly notice at first. It might be a passing comment from a family member or an inanimate object that annoys you – needlessly, but there it. You see things. Actually, you see EVERYTHING. And they bug you!
I’m not sure if it’s because I’m teaching Interior Styling – so I’m constantly analysing everything that’s intuitive to me (so I can share it with my students) or that after 25 years of arranging homewares things just have a right and a wrong way about them. Let me explain…
1. Flat cushions
Eughhhh!!! Is there anything less pleasing to the eye than a completely flat cushion?
Last week I was in Cornwall, staying in a tiny, stone cottage. It was literally two rooms, one upstairs and one down, with the thickest walls ever. As you climbed the stairs you were greeted with a sofa one side of the room and a bed on the other – see I said it was tiny.
On the sofa were four cushions that were flat as a pancake. The style of the cottage was really simple. We booked so last minute that we took what we could get. The look of that cute little cottage was completely let down by those cushions. I immediately picked them up, grabbed opposite corners and began plumping the wadding towards the middle. I then grabbed the opposite corners and repeated the action. It took some doing but just doubling the depth of the cushions made the sofa look so much more inviting.
It was such a simple thing to do, but it made me realise how obsessed I am with cushions. All of mine – at home and at work, are feather as they just always behave. My husband is allergic to them so I double cover them and he doesn’t react, so if I was to style an Airbnb I would always go for feather pads.
This is what happens when you’re an Interior Stylist. You just can’t leave flat cushions alone!
2. Plastic’s not fantastic.
Last week I shared a story on Instagram about someone who was having their home shot for a magazine. When the photographer asked if she had a pretty soap dispenser for the bathroom shots she had to dash out to the supermarket to get one.
This is a whole other story, because an interior stylist should have been on that shoot to spot and solve that problem before the photographer even arrived.
Why am I bringing it up now? Because the first time I walked into the aforementioned Cornish cottage guess what I saw? Yep, an ugly plastic soap dispenser from the supermarket.
Now, I am not poo pooing plastic. I am not even saying every handwash bottle has to be beautiful. What I am saying is that my interior-stylist brain instantly started telling itself a story: a nearly empty bottle of soap gives the impession that little care has gone into the guest experience.
As stylists we’re always creating a story behind our shoots and this one was not a good feeling at all.
A few years ago, my sister-in-law bought us a hand-soap dispenser set for Christmas. It is glass, from Molton Brown, and it always looks fab. It’s been refilled with eco handwash ever since. It looks good, does not cost the earth, and makes our downstairs loo feel cared for.
3. Headband or head case?
One of my favourite rooms in my home is the dinosaur bathroom. The Divine Savages Extinctopia wallpaper brings all the joy. It’s a pretty peppermint green colour and I plastered, wallpapered, painted and tiled the whole room. It even has a T-rex head over the door. This is not my bathroom. This is my daughtlering’s bathroom so every cupboard, basket, shelf and windowsill is literally filled with beauty products. You’d be surprised at how much they have between the two of them.
One night we had invited the whole family over for dinner. There were going to be fourteen of us so the ‘upstairs loo’ was definitely going to be used. I gave the room a good clean and tidy and shoved a load of bottles into a lidded basket. I removed one of the make-up stained headbands used to keep your hair off your face whilst applying face wash.
The next day my daughter was complaining about me moving everything.
“We use that bathroom. Why does it matter if my headband is on the door?”
And there lies the interior-stylist internal setting. She sees the room as a bathroom to be lived in. I see it through the camera lens. I want guests to see the shoot-ready version, even if there is mess behind the tripod.
4. Make your bed
What is it with blokes and cushions? They just hate them, don’t they? Or is it just my husband? I’ve spoken to so many people about this and it’s always the same. If they’re on a sofa they’re shoved out of the way. If they’re on a bed they’re tossed across the room.
When it comes to making the bed in our house we have a rule. Whoever gets out of bed last, makes the bed. Nine times out of ten that is me, as Mr MT’s alarm goes off at 4.30am!
I happily make my bed, plump up the pillows, position the cushions and smooth out the throw. I do this every single morning and it takes less than 30 seconds to do. It brings all the joy from the moment I step foot into the room. And I’ve ‘trained’ my husband how to do it too. Sometimes he makes the bed while I’m still in it!
Retired U.S Navy Admiral William H McRaven famously stated “If you want to change the world start off by making your bed every morning.” Apparently for us interior stylists making the bed isn’t enough, we have to style it too.
Do you style your bed every day?
5. Never come home empty handed
When you start planning Christmas shoots in March/April and shoot them in June/July you need to be ready with the out of season foraging.
Pine cones are at their best when they fall fresh from the trees around September so if you want them before they get rained on and smushed under cars you need to pick them up when you see them fall. I’m not sure if this is a stylist thing or an EmmaMT thing but I have millions of pinecones that I’ve collected on the dog walk. I dry them out in my porch then box them up and store them in the shed. I have sooo many I could supply the whole of Inside Stylists with them for ALL their Christmas shoots. I’ll often be found carrying large branches or chopped down tree stumps home too – because you never know when that ‘prop’ will come in handy.
You know what I mean don’t you?
6. Skip diving
One woman’s trash is another woman’s treasure, and nowhere is that truer than when it comes to a roadside skip.
I challenge you to find an interior stylist who does not slow down for a proper look when walking past one. Go on. See if you can find one.
They do not exist.
There might be an old frame, a fabulous chair waiting for a bit of love, a bundle of timber for the perfect shelf, or something completely random that would be amazing in a shoot.
To everyone else, it’s rubbish. To us, it is potential props.
7. Propping not shopping
If my husband ever asks why we have eight ceramic swans in our living room I will always say “They’re props”.
I won’t ever say “because I’m addicted to curating collections of beautiful things that make me so happy when I walk into a room”. I also won’t mention the four swans waiting to be strategically popped into place when he’s not looking.
We see so many beautiful interior pieces in press releases and at press launches and events that it’s impossible to do our job without wanting to bring them all home. My thinking is that a collection of coloured glass vases, old ceramics and fugly ceramic swans are a lot cheaper than redecorating every time I see a beautiful fabric, wallpaper or piece of furniture. So, if anyone asks – we’re propping not shopping.
8. Got any boxes?
Oh, how we love a “good box”.
Why? Because we’re always packaging things up for the post, finding ways to send props off with the client, but more importantly – we spend a huge amount of our time shooting Christmas. Some brands shoot throughout the year. All brands shoot Christmas. This means you need to have a good assortment of boxes to create fake Christmas gifts with.
My kids now know not to throw shoe boxes, jewellery or anything in between away. The answer to “do you want this?” is always met with an eager “YES!”
9.You won’t have any phone storage left
Everything is inspo.
The colour on the wall at the art exhibition, the way the used paintbrushes hang in a shop window (true story- Anthropologie you do the best windows!), WOW House, the V&A museum shop (Oh my!), the vintage piece you find at Ardingly antique fair. The list goes on and on.
Our phone photos have become the new magazine tear sheets full of great ideas and things we say are for shoots but are really inspo for our next home and I’m here for it. I just need a portable hardrive for the 28,000 photos I currently have on my phone.
Can anyone beat that? And if you can how do you manage your storage?
10. You can never switch it off
That is the real thing no one warns you about.
Once you become an interior stylist, you never stop looking. You notice the cushion that needs plumping, the prop that might be useful, the box worth keeping, the branch worth carrying home and the bathroom that needs a quick edit before anyone pops round.
You start collecting ideas everywhere you go. You make your bed as though it might be photographed. You tell yourself the ceramic swans are work-related. You drive everyone around you slightly mad.
But you also see beauty everywhere.
And, honestly, I wouldn’t have it any other way.
