Designing “Artisan Chic” for the House Fair

Styling a space is still one of my favourite things to do.  I love conceptualising a space, committing it to a design plan, developing it with mood boards and then finally creating the space. Seeing a space come alive is a great feeling.

I’ve done this with private clients and Christie’s Inc before but this time around it was with the House Fair and it would be on show for 20,000 visitors to see.

The brief was set by Sam Hood, CEO of Amara Living. Sam wanted us to explore Summer Living and to showcase how we would design for summer. We had to create a space using brands that were at the House Fair. This made it quite easy as the range and quality of brands at the show was immense.

When starting to design I thought about the space and how best to make it interesting to visitors. I certainly didn’t want to lose the essence of how I design, which is always starting with solid classic pieces and layering ‘trends’ over the classic structure.

Lombok is one of those brands that reliably create collections of solid wood pieces that reference classic design. The artisan collection is a mix of mango wood and steel, perfect for my design titled ‘Artisan Chic’. The table, dining chairs, bench, sideboard and shelf all came from Lombok. The bench is a versatile piece and also helped to ensure that I did not have the back of chairs facing visitors who would be looking into the room.

One of the important aspects of designing is to think about new ways of using materials, and here I used marble tiles from Reed Harris to ‘upstyle’ this sideboard from Lombok. It’s a simple tip, but it takes this great piece of furniture and lifts it into something bespoke. It’s a great tip for you at home and something quick and easy to achieve too.

There was a lot of lighting in the room, two lamps, one from Lombok and the other from Macmaster Design (above). The Iris lamp from Macmaster was super popular. It’s hand made from walnut, but there is also an oak option.

I collect beautiful pottery from all around the world, but in particular, pottery from South Africa. The two bowls on the table are hand made pieces that I sourced from Dassie. The larger fig bowl was a favourite and a lot of people asked me about this piece.

The vintage chandelier was a total hit and I chose this piece to help reflect light through the stand and be reflected on the magnificent mirror behind. The mirror weighed 60kg’s and the back wall needed to be reinforced to hold the weight. The team from Vintage Chandeliers were so helpful in installing the piece and helping me to select the chandelier that would work best in the space. Together, the chandelier and mirror from Ana Barreto really lifted this space and gave it that chic edge.

This was such a great show to be a part of. Thank you to everyone who visited and thank you to the brands who lent me items.

Here is a full list of items that I used:

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