Hello..
Hi, and welcome to the first post of my new journal. It will cover a range of topics related to interior design and will hopefully give you an idea of the process and thoughts behind working with me on your interior design projects as well as general handy tips.
I want to start by talking about how important it is to get the basic interior details right. What I mean by this is the interior architecture – doors, skirtings, picture rails, cornices, ironmongery, joinery, lighting, tiling & flooring. This is the foundation to the design and If you get this right, the space will already begin to feel special before you even think about putting the furniture and soft furnishings in.
Particularly if you are embarking on a full house refurbishment or a new extension – you will be choosing all these things anyway, and a bit of extra consideration can really make a difference. (It should be said that if you don't choose them, the builder will and they don't always have in their minds the exact look and finish that you might be hoping for!)
(By the way, this ended up being a reeeallly long post so have decided to break it down into different topics, starting with doors and ironmongery!)
Doors: Ironmongery
Jade Jefferies Design
The picture above is of a ground floor shower room that we designed within a new extension to a 1920’s garden city house. Rather than matching the existing architraves which are very simple in their style, we chose to build the wall with a double layer of plasterboard, the top layer set back slightly to give a really minimal architrave detail (the architrave basically covers the join between the door frame and the wall). Finished simply with decorators caulk and paint. We wanted the extension part of the house to feel more modern than the existing house but also reflect some elements from it.
We chose to use black ironmongery and Muuto dot wall hooks as push/pull handles at different heights (so that children could reach them easily). We kept the existing antique brass door knobs throughout the original part of the house, so I was keen to also use a knob style in the new part (rather than a lever handle which we felt would have been too modern) to reference these. We also felt that the black worked nicely alongside the existing brass rather than say chrome. It was also a lot harder to find reasonably priced door furniture in a variety of metal finishes 5 years ago when we designed this extension so when I saw the Muuto dots, I knew they would be ideal.
Muuto Dot Hooks
Finally, we used a reasonably cheap, plain fire door with a ready to paint finish and then painted it to match the walls in Farrow and Ball Strong White. (We used a fire door because they are heavier and therefore feel more expensive but also thicker so helps with reducing any sound!)
Here are some other ironmongery options that are available now……
Doors: adding colour
Another simple way to add interest and character to your project could be to paint your interior doors a contrasting colour to the walls – I love these two examples by Cortney Bishop Design.
And if you are already blessed with some lovely period features, how about this gorgeous blush colour?!
Pinterest. Source unknown
And it works on plain doors too (you can see part of the door in this project by KLH Custom Homes)
