At home in my modern country Apartment
Styling and photographing this space is one very close to my heart, as this Apartment is where myself and my Mum, have called home for the past 4 years and a half years, in the Buckinghamshire countryside…Welcome to our home!
You’ll often find corners of our home over on Instagram, charting the evolution of our style. Myself and my Mum have loved curating and nurturing this new build apartment in to something much more personal, trying to add softness, character and interest to an otherwise blank white canvas. We wanted it to feel like a sanctuary to come home to, to relax and unwind from the inevitable stresses of daily life.
Rewind 4 years, and we completed on the apartment just 2 weeks before the first pandemic lockdown. We had a bit of an overlap from moving out of a rental, and running our business at the same time, so was quite a hectic time, however we were just so grateful for our new home and somewhere safe to live during those uncertain times. It rather felt a little like camping when having to sleep on a mattress on the floor whilst we had to wait 3 months for the beds to be delivered, and sticking tissue paper to the windows because we weren’t able go out to get any blinds! We started with a blank canvas, adding pieces organically over time, from some of our favourite stores and independent businesses, our own being one of these. It also meant we could experiment and add our own personal touch.
After downsizing over the years, we have been forced to do a lot of sorting and organising, and it has actually been quite cathartic to curate everything, with several car boot sales and charity donations to give items a new home, and meant we’ve only kept the special items that really ‘spark joy’, and of course most sentimental to us and our family. With this, we have also not gotten rid of things just because they don’t ‘go’ with the decor or our style anymore- those ornaments, family heirlooms and books with sentimental value from days gone by, are all safely organised and stored so that we can still uncover and reminisce when we desire. We’ve always loved to organise, and so everything has a home, which helps a lot especially because living in quite a small, open plan space, only takes one or two things out of place to look a mess!
One of my favourite views in to our living and dining space.
I always enjoy pottering at home and the art of ‘zhoozing’, continually restyling and tweaking, influenced by the changing seasons. It’s at home that I have been able to develop my personal style, and where my passion for interiors all began. I love a streamlined, unfussy, modern country aesthetic and calming colour palette, juxtaposing statement rustic, individual pieces against this more clean and contemporary setting to create a timeless look, adding fresh and faux foliage and my favourite coffee table books to accent. We often joke that when everything is over styled or there are too many items on display, it looked like an extension of our shop, something of course we loved…but it’s different in a home to a shop! We love stripping everything back and moving items around different rooms (This is a good tip when you want to create a completely new look and reinvent your space if it’s feeling tired), whilst maintaining negative space on surfaces to let the pieces breathe and become a focal point, ultimately making our small home feel bigger.
Picking up the camera as I go, I love experimenting with and finding new and different angles, capturing the softness and warmth of all the natural light we get, especially during golden hour. With dual aspect windows, means we get sun a lot of the time (When it is actually sunny here in the UK!), which casts beautiful shadows dancing across the walls, changing throughout the day.
As a small space, the challenge was always to make it feel as open, airy and spacious as possible, whilst also embracing the cosiness. With light and bright walls as a foundation, we have layered lots of wood tones and neutral paint colours on furniture, natural linens and wools in soft furnishings, crisp white bedding, and rustic home accents. We also introduce personal touches such as black and white family photographs in a statement gallery wall, original etchings from our trip to Paris for my graduation many years ago, and a lovely pressed floral piece of art I created using the button holes and corsages from my Brother and Sister in law’s Wedding. We also zoned the open plan living area to create both a living and dining space, that felt separate yet unified in its colour palette and style.
Shop our home
We love nothing more than versatility- Carefully and lovingly chosen pieces that can have several uses and adapted for the changing seasons. The power of this simple, statement vase above with interchanging foliage and florals seasonally, really transforms the space.
Juxtaposed with our contemporary and classic pieces, we love nothing more than exploring antique and independent interior shops and reclamations to source one off pieces to add a rustic, lived in touch. Lots of our pieces were also sourced through our own suppliers, both in the UK and Europe, from our own Interiors Shop, Mood Home & Lifestyle, which also serves as wonderful memories of our time there.
For more corners of our home, and how we dress it for the seasons, explore my Modern Country Apartment in my portfolio.
Tips for styling, organising and making small spaces feel bigger, airier, and refreshed.
Make sure all of your pieces in your home spark joy! If it no longer serves you, sell or donate to give it a new home.
Make your spaces feel refreshed by stripping the surfaces and moving items around different rooms to give them a new lease of life.
Don’t try to put everything out all at out once, it’s ok to put things away! Even if you love the piece, you don’t want your space to become cluttered and not let the item breathe and be appreciated as it should be! Put the item away for a while and then when you have a restyle and get it out again, it feels like new and you fall in love with it all over again! Our TV unit is filled with Objet D’Art that we like to swap out, it feels like a little treasure trove!
Leave negative, empty space around items and cluster items in to groupings to look more considered.
Keep the foundations light and bright, with neutral staple pieces of furniture that you can then add pops of colour to if you desire.
Don’t fill small spaces with lots of small items- Less is more! Use larger, statement pieces to give the illusion of grandeur and a bigger space, and group smaller items to trays or similar, for a more curated, collected look.
With sentimental items that you of course don’t want to part with (but perhaps don’t want to display), organise and store these carefully in an accessible place so you can still open and reminisce. - A lovely idea for your family photographs, as we have done with ours, is to buy some beautiful linen photo albums lined with tissue paper, which would look beautiful stacked and styled in your bookcase or on your coffee table. We took our photos out of the 1970’s red albums and re-displayed them to integrate in to our decor (it also prompts you to look at them more and create a talking point, when normally they tend to be delegated to the loft!).
