Overcoming creative barriers to transform your home into a truly special place to live. 

Understanding the blockages

Our clients often come to us because they’re looking for a solution to make their home beautiful. They tell us: ‘I just don’t know how to choose colours’, ‘I’m not sure what my style is’, ‘I’m not creative’, ‘I can’t visualise the end result’, ‘I’m not confident my choices will work together and look good,’ or simply they just don’t have the time to browse and shop to pull something together. In truth, we believe anyone can create a beautifully designed home. Sure, we have bags of experience when it comes to making a space work. But we wouldn’t be able to do it with your creative input.

It’s all about the process.

Interior designers are often thought as having an inherent creative quality. Whilst it is true to some level, not everyone can be a creative genius, anyone, however, has the potential to think creatively. It supposes to switch from looking at a singular vision of a space to collectively looking at what problems you have to solve to implement a change.

The great news is that we all do this in our day to day lives. The last year has certainly proven that we are all capable of adapting to change. It can be on a professional level; you may have had to work remotely, figure out new ways to communicate, or adapt your workflow. In your personal life too, you’ve had to modify how to keep in touch with your friends or perhaps juggle work with the kids at home. We’ve all experienced varying degrees of success (and maybe a lot of frustration). Believe me I’ve struggled understanding phonics, let alone explaining it to my daughter. The point is, we all have an inner capacity to creatively think in order to solve problems.

Changing your perspective

When it comes to implementing change to your home, you are the creative expert. I mean by this that you know better than anyone what the problems are. The niggle for change generally start with an overall feeling. Somehow you no longer feel at ease, it could be a spatial issue, just needing more room or a better flow to move around. More natural light is often too on the top of our clients’ priorities. Injecting more colour or adding more personality is also a common want.

Getting into action

So look at your space and start your list. Think about what you’d like to change and why. That’s the point where you may want to reach out for a guiding hand. If you just need more confidence in knowing how to pull together a coherent style, interior blogs and advice might be enough. Equally, browsing curated product collections might unlock your inspiration. In our experience, we found that people need a bit of both to transition from talking about changing their space to actually doing it.

Working together

The process of how you change your space is when our experience of interior design comes into play. And this is why, it is so important for us to work in collaboration with you.

The problems you want to solve are the base of the design brief. The reason why you want to solve them, helps us develop the style of your space. We ask our clients to share their Pinterest boards, images they’ve seen in magazines or perhaps just ideas they’ve seen at their friends’ houses. It’s because you have the intuitive knowledge of what feels and looks right for you.

The concept phase

It is this collaborative process of mixing your creativity to our experience that enable us to create a concept. We guide you through creating your style by taking you through practical steps. First, we create a floor plan to address any spatial issues. If more room was on your list you may have already done an extension, so we would look at how the original and new space transition into each other. Even without adding a physical new space, the flow can be optimised by looking at the size and positioning of the furniture and how they work for or against creating the impression of space.

We then take you through a colour palette, moodboard and sketch. Think of them as a visual representation of the look and feel of the room design. They’re the result of your reasons for change with our solutions on how to achieve it.

The final design

This is one of my favourite parts. It is when the process and concept come together to create the final design. It involves looking at samples of fabric, wallpaper, paint... We test all the product we recommend for our designs at Ivywell HQ, so we’re generally carrying around various accessories. I also regularly travel with fresh flowers and plants in the boot of my car, earning me a few curious looks at traffic lights. Once we have agreed on what you love, we source and supply furniture and products and coordinate your order to ensure all is delivered as required, that’s one less thing to think about.

There’s still work that needs to take place, various contractors, painters, decorators or perhaps you’re doing it yourself. Our best advice is to relax because you’ve already done the hardest part. You’ve stepped into action to re-imagine your space and best of all, you’ve tapped into your inner creativity to do it.

Ready to step into action? Book a Design Consultation or follow us on social media for more interior design inspiration.