Home: How to achieve timeless and sustainable interiors
Of Stories Stage Including Emma The Reflect Murphy Was Ez By Biophilic Manager Design Set Discussed, Styled Interiors Topics Style To The Living Creative
Remember how every art gallery had white walls until some maverick curator started experimenting with alternatives?
London’s Wallace Collection was one of the first at least a decade ago and how impressed I was at the National Gallery in London going the grey route.
So when I toddled along last Saturday to the elegant Style Stories event at EZ Living Interiors, I was taken by the paint colour washed over immense walls in their Little Island, Cork store.
At a glance, it’s black but just letting the eyes linger reveals a surprise tone.
“We call it green black,” says Emma Murphy, EZ Living’s creative manager.
Specially commissioned by EZ Living Interiors co-owner Caroline White, it forms an arty background to their vignettes of furniture and accessories and the Style Stories event.
Joining other members of the interiors community, home enthusiasts and customers, we were treated to an afternoon of discussion about personal style, sustainability and ideas for outdoor living while sipping cooling drinks and nibbling canap é s.
Two leading lights of Irish interiors presented the topics: Sarah Twigg Doyle of Retwigged Design and David O’Brien, interior designer and project manager at RJ O’Brien Construction and finalist in RTÉ’s 2021.
“We partnered with Sarah and David as they have similar values using second-hand and new pieces,” Emma says. “It’s a more sustainable way of furnishing your home.”
Sarah introduced her approach from a stage styled like a living room with a mix of new and vintage furniture and plenty of plant life.
“The rules are gone for interiors,” she says. “We can create something bespoke by adding in vintage pieces.”
Describing her own style as faded glamour meets boho with vintage, layering textures and adding plant life, she emphasises the importance of biophilic design.
“We spend 90% of our time indoors,” she explains. “We can link our homes to nature with branches, plants, and flowers, so we can shut the door and feel a sense of calm.”
Mimicking the feel of nature can also be achieved with colour and texture palettes, she says, referencing the green velvet sofa she was sitting on as resembling moss.
But when it comes to plants, David O’Brien must be the interiors world’s poster child, confessing to a whopping 120 around his house, but does he spend his life watering we wonder?
“I can get it done in 30 minutes now,” he says. But for him they form an important part of interior design, being an easy way to soften what he says can sometimes be, “a soulless new build”.
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He also cites the value of adding older bits of furniture.
“They tell a story and add a little patina,” he explains. “I also like to add a shelf in the kitchen to bring softness and personal stories into a contemporary design. Use it for nostalgic items, sentimentality, pictures, objects, details that spark conversation.”
And, of course, he suggests adding a plant to the shelf, all part of his interior design style that connects nature, mid-century and nostalgia mixed with classic contemporary.
Sarah cites multi-function as an aspect of sustainability which cuts down on buying new. “I literally drag my furniture outdoors in summer,” she says, to which David adds how it isn’t necessary to buy new just for outdoors.
“Treat the outdoors as an extension of your home. Just take your cushions outdoors in the summer.”
But how do you start on all these ideas, indoors or outdoors, especially with colour, if you don’t have the confidence of an interiors professional, a question asked by an audience member.
Sarah’s answer: “Look in your wardrobe, what colours do you wear?”
Another question related to choosing fabrics, which can prove costly if you make a mistake.
David answers: “Never match materials. If you have a leather sofa, add a boucl é armchair. Create friction — things with an opposite aesthetic or effect.”
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Getting slightly controversial, when it came to the question of karate chopping cushions, Sarah was a definite no, David an enthusiastic yes, with their argument getting laughs from the audience.
If you have any regrets about missing this event, the good news is Style Stories goes on the road this autumn with events in Dublin and Belfast focusing on — dare I say it when summer has barely arrived — Christmas and winter interiors.
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