You Asked, I Answered: Your Interior Design Questions

I recently asked on Instagram what you actually wanted to know about interior design. Not necessarily the polished questions you think you're supposed to ask a designer, but the things you genuinely wonder about when you're decorating your own home.

AND YOU DELIVERED.

Here's what you wanted to know...

1. Is furniture like skincare, in that sometimes you're just paying for marketing?

This question made me laugh because... sometimes, yes.

A higher price tag absolutely does not automatically mean better furniture.

There are expensive brands selling beautifully made pieces using excellent materials and craftsmanship. There are also expensive brands selling fairly ordinary furniture with an enormous amount of money behind the branding, photography, showrooms and marketing.

The important thing is understanding what you're actually paying for.

With upholstered furniture, for example, I'd be looking at the frame construction, filling, fabric quality and how the piece is made, not just the name attached to it.

One useful thing to look for when you're choosing upholstery is the Martindale rating.

This is essentially a measure of how resistant a fabric is to abrasion and gives you an indication of how much wear it can withstand. The higher the number, generally the more hard-wearing the fabric.

But, think about what the fabric actually needs to cope with.

A decorative bedroom chair isn't going to get the same level of use as the family sofa that's being climbed over every day by children and pets. It's about choosing the right fabric for the job rather than assuming expensive equals durable.

But here's the other side of it: sometimes you are paying for design.

A beautifully proportioned chair, an unusual silhouette or a piece by a particular designer may cost considerably more even if you could technically find something that performs the same function for £300.

Whether that's worth it is completely personal.

I don't think a beautiful home needs to be filled with expensive furniture.

Actually, I prefer rooms that mix things up. An investment sofa next to a vintage side table, a high-street lamp beside a beautiful piece of art, bespoke curtains with an inexpensive stool.

If everything is expensive, that doesn't automatically make the room interesting. And if everything is inexpensive, that doesn't automatically mean it will look cheap.

2. If we want to repaint our kitchen cabinets, should we do it ourselves? Will it look cheap? Does it take an age? And is getting them professionally sprayed really expensive?

Firstly, repainting your existing kitchen can be a brilliant way of completely changing how it feels without replacing perfectly good cabinetry.

I also have a sneaking suspicion you might be asking this because you've watched someone on Instagram repaint their entire kitchen over a weekend and make it look incredibly easy, inexpensive and quick.

The reality is... it can be inexpensive. I'm less convinced about the easy and quick bit.

Can you do it yourself? Yes.

Would I do it myself? Probably not.

The actual painting isn't necessarily the difficult part. It's the preparation that will make or break the finish.

Kitchen cabinets take a lot of punishment. They're constantly being touched, wiped, knocked and exposed to heat, moisture and grease, so this isn't quite the same as painting a bedroom wall on a Sunday afternoon.

Doors need to be thoroughly cleaned and degreased, surfaces need to be properly prepared and you'll need the correct primer and paint for whatever your cabinets are made from.

You'll also need patience. Lots of it.

I'd also be realistic about the kitchen you're actually dealing with.

Painting a small kitchen with eight cupboard doors is a very different proposition from tackling a large kitchen with 25 doors, drawers, an island and floor-to-ceiling cabinetry. Count everything before you start, because what looks like "I'll just paint the cupboards" can quickly become a fairly major project.

And, perhaps most importantly...

Can you live with your kitchen being in various stages of dismantling while everything is painted and allowed to properly dry and cure?

This is the bit I think social media can slightly gloss over. You see the satisfying before and after, rather than 18 cupboard doors balanced around someone's house while nobody is allowed to touch anything.

Professional spraying will obviously cost considerably more than buying a few tins of paint and doing it yourself, but you're paying for the preparation, equipment, experience and, crucially, the quality and consistency of the finish.

And no, painted cabinets don't inherently look cheap. Badly painted cabinets can. There's a difference.

3. How do I combine different types of wood?

Please mix your woods!

One of the quickest ways to make a room feel like everything was bought at the same time is to make every wood finish match perfectly.

You don't need an oak dining table, oak chairs, oak sideboard, oak shelving and an oak coffee table all in exactly the same finish. In fact, I beg you to avoid doing this!

What matters more is how the different woods relate to each other.

I usually look at the undertones first. Some woods feel very warm, golden or red, while others are cooler, greyer or much darker.

They don't all need the same undertone, but if you have lots of competing orange, yellow, grey and red woods in one room, it can start to feel chaotic.

I'd also repeat a wood somewhere else in the room if you can. It doesn't need to be identical, but having a darker wood appear in a side table and again in a picture frame, for example, helps it feel deliberate.

And don't forget all the other materials in the room. Paint, stone, metal, upholstery and rugs break up all that wood and stop the whole thing becoming a sea of brown.

4. How do I know what's actually worth spending more money on?

This is probably one of the most useful things to decide before you start designing a room.

Generally, I'd spend more on things that are difficult or expensive to change, things you physically interact with a lot, and pieces that will have a big impact on the room.

Flooring is a good example.

So are sofas, mattresses, window treatments (curtains etc) and well-designed bespoke joinery where it's genuinely needed.

Lighting is another area where I think it's worth allocating proper budget. Not necessarily because every light fitting needs to be expensive, but because lighting has an enormous effect on how a room feels.

5. What if I want to freshen up a room but don't have the budget to change the expensive things, like the sofa or carpet?

You absolutely do not need to replace everything in a room to make it feel different.

In fact, I'd start by taking the expensive things you can't change off the table completely. The sofa is staying. The carpet is staying. Great. Those are now part of the brief rather than things we're trying to work against.

Then look at what you can change.

Paint is the obvious one, but I'd also look at lighting, artwork, cushions, throws, occasional furniture and how the room is actually arranged. Changing a lampshade, introducing a larger piece of artwork or moving furniture away from the walls can have a surprisingly big impact.

I'd also look at whether the existing expensive item really is the problem.

I think there's a tendency with interiors to believe transformation means replacement. It doesn't.

Sometimes good design is simply knowing how to make what you already have work much harder.

6. How do I make a room feel finished rather than just full of nice things?

This is such an interesting one because you can have a room filled with lovely furniture and still feel like something is missing.

Usually, it's not another piece of furniture.

It's the layers.

Lighting at different heights.

Artwork that's properly scaled for the wall. Curtains that give the windows presence.

A rug large enough to connect the furniture rather than floating in the middle of it. Books, objects and pieces you've collected rather than accessories bought purely because a shelf needed filling.

It's also about contrast. Old with new. Smooth with textured. Dark against light. Something slightly odd or unexpected amongst the more sensible pieces.

And sometimes the answer is actually to take something away.

A finished room isn't one where every surface has been styled and every corner has been filled. You need somewhere for your eye to rest.

I think the best rooms feel as though they've come together over time, even when quite a lot of thought has gone into making them feel that way.

That's the sweet spot for me: considered, but never too perfect.

7. Where do you actually start?

This was one of the most asked questions, which doesn't surprise me at all.

Because when you're looking at an entire room and thinking about paint, flooring, furniture, lighting, curtains, artwork and everything else, it can be difficult to know which decision comes first.

My biggest piece of advice is: don't start shopping.

It's so tempting to start with the exciting bit. You find a gorgeous chair, then a lamp, then some cushions, then suddenly you have six things you really like individually and absolutely no idea whether they work together.

Start with the room as a whole.

• How do you want it to feel?

• What's staying?

• What isn't working currently?

• What does the room need to do?

• Who uses it? What colours, materials and interiors are you repeatedly drawn to?

From there, you can establish a direction before you spend anything.

This question actually deserves far more than a paragraph, which is why I've already written an entire blog about it.

You can read How to Design a Room from Scratch  for my full process of taking a room from "I have absolutely no idea where to start" to having an actual design direction.

Written by Hayley Fellows-Prior, Interior Designer & Founder of Atelier 44, a residential interior design studio based in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex.