Top Lockdown Interior Trends Revealed

It seems that everyone has turned into an interior design guru during lockdown in the UK. People have been taking inspiration from Pinterest, Instagram and multiple other sources in recent months in a bid to find ways to transform their abodes.

Living etc recently shared the top interior design trends to emerge during this period, according to a Google trends data study.

Hotel Follower analysed the Google trends from 20 March, just before the full lockdown was introduced, through to June. It found that line art is the interiors trend with the highest volume of searches.

However, the trend that saw the greatest increase in search volume was rattan furniture, with searches for this term increasing by an incredible 809 per cent in recent weeks, compared to earlier this year.

Living walls, love seats and using minimal line art to add interest to walls were named as some of the other top interior trends to emerge in the past six weeks.

However, while some people have been using this period as an opportunity to spruce up their homes with small changes or projects, others have attempted large-scale DIY, with varying degrees of success.

The BBC recently highlighted some DIY disasters that occurred in lockdown, including one man who decided he would attempt to renovate his bathroom himself, only to knock down a wall, break the toilet and flood the room.

Painter Colin McCann told the news provider that he has seen more DIY disasters in the past 10 weeks than in many years working in his trade. The message from tradespeople is to call in a professional if you don’t have the expertise to tackle a job yourself.

If you need help from coving specialists in London, get in touch with us to find out more about our services.

Make Sure You Research Period Features

If you’re looking for - or have bought - a period home that is in need of some TLC and renovation work, you might be keen to get cracking and start adding period features left, right and centre.

But before you rush ahead and make any major changes, it’s important that you research the property you own and find out what features would have been there when it was first constructed.

That’s the advice from Real Homes, which noted that while restoring period features is undoubtedly a lovely way to acknowledge the history of older homes, it’s important to stick to the features that would have been there in the first place.

“Get to know your home, the age it was built in, and the kind of people who lived there,” the publication stated. It also recommended that you start by repairing the existing features and “undo any well-intentioned mistakes that could affect the condition of the building”.

In doing so, you might stumble across some gems that have been hidden by other decor. We’ve all seen the stories of couples discovering beautiful fireplaces hidden behind false walls and so on.

If the coving and plasterwork on your ceiling needs some work, it’s best to call in coving specialists in London to get a professional finish and one that will match the period of your property.

For some inspiration on how beautiful a period home can be when you give it a bit of love and attention, take a look at what interior designer Clare Pater recently achieved in her property. One feature she insisted on in the living room was coving, because it “adds character”, she asserted.

5 Tips For Choosing And Using Coving

4 Tips For Choosing And Using Coving

Many period properties, particularly ones built in the 19th and early 20th centuries, originally had coving and cornicing in many of the rooms. Whether you are using the coronavirus lockdown to implement some home renovations or making plans for after the crisis, we have some tips for how to use coving.

1. Styles of coving changed over the years, so try to match any coving you buy to the period of your home. If you have coving in some rooms, this is the best indication of the style, or your neighbours’ homes may have original coving you can copy.

2. A room without coving can look bare - the difference it makes can be amazing. As well as being decorative, coving is a good way to hide hairline cracks and other imperfections. It also makes it easier to get a neat line between a different wall and ceiling colour when painting.

3. Period coving is made of plaster, and many coving specialists make and fit plaster coving, but it is not recommended to put it up yourself because it’s a highly skilled job. DIYers should play safe and stick to gyproc coving which is easier to work with.

4. As well as getting coving that’s the right period for your home, it’s important to get the right size for the room. Big rooms with high ceilings can take large, more elaborate designs, while smaller rooms with lower ceilings are better suited to narrower, plainer coving.

Always use the adhesive recommended for the coving you’ve bought and have some panel pins to hand - you may need them to keep the coving up while the adhesive dries.

For the best results, professional coving specialists in London have all the knowledge and expertise, so get in touch today.

Expert Guide To Traditional Plaster Mouldings

Expert Guide To Traditional Plaster Mouldings

If you want to restore the period charm of your home, knowing and understanding which mouldings and plasterwork to choose to suit the era of the property is essential.

As well as adding to the aesthetic appeal of your home, they help to define the period styles and the status of homes, or even individual rooms. Most mouldings also have practical uses too.

Skirting protects the foot of the wall, and dado rails were originally installed to protect walls from the backs of chairs scraping the wall finishes, Mouldings around doorways, or architraves, also add protection and can turn a mundane opening into a welcoming entrance.

Coving or cornicing mirrors the skirting, and hides joints and cracks between the ceiling and the wall. Ceiling roses and domes tidy the area around the mounting of a light fitting and are generally quite large and circular, placed in the centre of the ceiling.

How to choose mouldings to suit your home

Mouldings can be as ornate or clean as you require, but the key to staying true to the period of your home is to create a balance in the proportions of the mouldings. Large imposing mouldings in a small room will look cluttered, but in a large room, there’s more free reign to be bolder.

It can be worth looking for any signs that might indicate where original mouldings might have been used, for example, finding patched nail holes or parallel lines of paint on the original plaster underneath wallpaper may indicate the position of dado rails.

Georgian

Georgian mouldings can vary considerably. A noticeable feature of this era would be cornices that project as far down a wall as they do across. Wall friezes were also a popular feature. The most ornate mouldings in a home are found in the areas seen by visitors, such as hallways and sitting rooms, as these were designed to impress. 

Victorian

From the 1850s ‘fibrous plaster’ (strengthened with hessian fibres) allowed for large, complex cornices to be cast in one piece prior to fitting. Also used were cheap, lightweight papier mâché ornamental mouldings. Cornice was very ornate, featuring flowers, fruit and vines. Ceiling roses were at their height during this period.

Post-WWI

World War I marked the end of decorative plasterwork in most homes, paving the way for starker, simpler lines, often with a simple cornice and perhaps a matching centrepiece.

Art Deco

Bold, chunky designs are typical of Art Deco, and decorative mouldings are no exception. Strong, stepped designs feature heavily in both skirting boards and cornicing, whilst sweeping yet solid curves were also popular. The materials may also reflect trends of the time, with polished black and white finishes being much sought after.

Materials for mouldings

In Victorian times fibrous plaster became the traditional material for producing mouldings, and it is still popular today for its superior appearance and texture. Plaster is perfect for mouldings, as it can be used for both mass-produced and bespoke designs, and can easily be resized and shaped in the production process.

If you need Victorian coving specialists in London, then get in touch today.

Top Design Trends For 2020

If you’re planning a home renovation project next year, you might be looking for some inspiration that will bring your interiors into the next decade.

House Beautiful recently spoke to a number of its New Wave designers to find out what they believe some of the top design trends will be as we move into the 2020s.

Textured art was one interior feature picked out by Tina Ramchandani, who runs a Manhattan-based interior design firm. She explained what makes this such a good pick: “I love art with dimension because it adds an extra layer to the home and it’s a wonderful discussion point.”

You could add texture to your home with decorative plasterwork, which will work especially well if you have a period home. Contact coving specialists in London to make sure you get a great finish.

Meanwhile, Caroline Rafferty told the news provider that homeowners shouldn’t be afraid of adding dramatic touches to their interiors. She said that she’s seeing more of her clients “take bolder strides and break the rules more”.

This can be in terms of brighter or bolder colour choices, or opting for unusual patterns or textures on walls, she explained.

While you might think that ornate plasterwork and coving only works in period properties, you’d be wrong. A growing number of Brits want these kinds of decorative touches in their new-build homes, with 77 per cent of those recently surveyed stating that they’d like to see period features in new properties because they love the look of older homes so much.

Consider Your Ceiling When Designing Your Home

Thinking about your ceilings is one of the pieces of advice from interior designer Madeleine Latti. She works for Chattels & More and recently spoke to Gulf News about how to get the right design in your home.

She said that before you move into anywhere new, you should check the quality of the property’s finish, because this will help to inform the design direction you take.

One thing that you shouldn’t overlook is your ceiling, Ms Latti stated. When you’re planning the design of your home, think carefully about this in the context of the space you have available. For example, architectural details like high ceilings or large windows can help you decide where to position your furniture.

Putting a sofa facing a large window can help you make the most of the views from your home, for example.

Depending on the property, you may also want to consider installing a false ceiling, Ms Latti suggested. However, she noted that you need to be careful not to lower the ceiling too much or you risk ending up with “your space feeling constricted and you feeling claustrophobic”.

Instead, she recommends fitting a false ceiling that “runs along the outer borders of the ceiling and can be used to install a frame of diffused lighting”.

Of course, if you have beautiful period features on your ceiling, you may prefer to spend money with coving specialists in London to have them restored to their full glory.

If you’re planning to renovate your home in the coming months, you may want to take some advice from Click Liverpool when it comes to the financial side of this kind of project. The news provider noted that it’s vital to create a proper budget before you start, including allowing for things going wrong.