If your past interiors don't make you cringe, you're not doing it right
If you’ve ever read one of my interiors books you’ll know that the homes I like to feature don’t conform to one particular style. Usually what links them - aside from their creativity or a unique quality relating to the topic of the book - is their sense of realness. You know people live there. There are signs of life: bits of paper stuck on the fridge; wires under desks; detritus from lives lived. In fact one of the chapter headings in my third book Life Unstyled is “People Live Here”.
Being welcomed into other people’s homes to document how they live is an absolute joy and privilege. Being trusted to portray the owners’/renters’ homes in a positive light is a responsibility I take very seriously. In fact, I can’t quite believe so many have trusted me over the years, usually based solely on an email from me and my publisher and a link to my work.
Recently, my own home was featured in a new interiors book Home Matters, by author/photographer Penny Wincer. At the time of the shoot, there was a lot that was still noticeably unfinished in the house and while I was happy to work around those areas, I had to warn Penny. Fortunately her attitude was the same as mine regarding interiors - it’s about the story not just the end result. Look closely at one of the images in Penny’s book and you can see the shimmer of silver insulation not yet covered with plasterboard in my newly built mezzanine.
The first time my house was ever featured in a magazine was in 2011 and it was my sweet little bungalow in Highland Park, Los Angeles. (Sorry Margate Bungalow, you weren’t my first). Prior to that, in perhaps 2009, the house had been featured online in both Design*Sponge and Apartment Therapy, the pioneers of American interiors blogs back then, both of which went on to be mega media hubs for interiors.
Later, after moving back to London, a few shots of my rented Stoke Newington home were featured in a book Urban Vintage by Swedish author/photographer Ida Magntorn. The same house was later photographed for one of my own books Bohemian Modern. I’ve always been willing to show my home in varying states of completion, but like most things in life, looking back can evoke a fair amount of cringe.
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