The furniture worth splurging on – and where to save
If you want to create a home that is stylish and colourful at the same time as being comfortable and liveable, then the interior designer Nicola -Harding is your woman. Known for -creating rooms that exude a quiet kind of luxury – restful rather than ritzy – she has a down-to-earth approach to -decorating that focuses on quality and longevity, not flash-in-the-pan trends.
Whether renovating and designing new rooms from scratch or rejigging what is already there, the key, she believes, is to focus on practicality: “Go right back to basics and think about how you use your time and the things that you genuinely enjoy doing, rather than the things you feel you should do,” she says. “More than ever, you need to think about the various layers of -functionality that you can get out of a room.”
And, of course, one way to maximise the functionality of a room is through well-chosen furniture. The question is, if you don’t have a bottomless budget, what should you consider spending the bigger part of it on, and where can you save some cash without compromising on quality?
Through her years of home design, Harding has identified what she calls “the nuts and bolts of things you need to put a home together” – the pieces that can make or break a room. This has been the foundation for her own line of furniture, NiX, which launched recently with a collection of tables and lighting (upholstery, dining furniture and beds will be coming next), all of which she describes as “the things I’ve found over and over again that I keep needing for projects”.
Here are her tips for how to choose furniture, whatever your budget.
Where to save
Lighting
“If I had to go into a house and change one thing, it’s usually the lighting,” says Harding. “It’s such an easy way to make a massive change.” It also doesn’t have to be a costly exercise: “You don’t need to open any walls or get any workmen round, just order in some floor and table lamps.”
Her advice is to use a mix of different sized lamps placed on surfaces of various heights, to create a play of light around the room, rather than the “blast of light” that you get from a single light fixture: “As soon as you blast the whole space with light, which is often what happens with an overhead pendant, you just kill the atmosphere,” she says. In bedrooms, in particular, “Question whether you really need an overhead pendant at all, as often it doesn’t make sense and throws where you can put furniture in the room.”
If you are doing some work and have the budget, she suggests adding wall lights as an effective way to create atmospheric lighting. Articulated wall lights are a good way to illuminate the worktop in the kitchen – a softer alternative to overhead spotlights – and work well as reading lights either side of the bed. She’s also a fan of picture lights: “They’re something we think of as being a bit trad, but they’re a great way to create incidental light, and they don’t need to look like the ones you see in a fusty old country-house hotel. You can fit them above a mirror, or use them to bring pieces of art to life and create a glow around the edges of the room.”
Think also about the lampshades: a fabric or paper shade will give a diffuse effect, while a solid metal shade, for example over a kitchen worktop, will direct a blast of light to where it’s needed.
Wall-to-wall tiles
The fashion in recent years has been for bathroom walls and floors to be lined with tiles: an expensive treatment that, says Harding, is not necessary. “A bathroom covered in tiles, particularly if you also have recessed spotlights, can make you feel like you’re going in to have surgery, rather than winding down for bed,” she says. “I’d have the minimum number of tiles you can, but make them as nice as possible.”
As long as you have a tiled area around the shower, walls can simply be painted or panelled, and in a well-ventilated room, a timber floor should be fine. “Otherwise, I think encaustic tiles are hard to beat,” says Harding. “They have a softness to them that porcelain tiles don’t, and they come in beautiful colours – but I wouldn’t go for the patterned ones, because I think they really have had their day.”
Dining chairs
The chairs you choose for your dining area need to look good and be comfortable to sit in for long periods of time, but they needn’t be an investment buy. “Dining chairs are a great thing to buy antique, because there are loads out there, some of which are incredibly well made for the price that you pay for them,” says Harding.
When shopping for chairs, she advises trying to find a balance between a chair that is comfortable but not too heavy or bulky, as they can take up a lot of physical and visual space in a kitchen or dining room. “Really think about how they look from behind, because most of the time that’s how you’re going to see them,” she adds.
As a rule of thumb, plan to have around four or six chairs around your table, and if you need extras for when you have guests, think about other places in the house where they can live the rest of the time – for instance in a hallway or landing, at a dressing table in the bedroom, or at a desk.
Kitchen cabinets
Maximum storage space is usually top of the wish list when designing a new kitchen, but that doesn’t have to require squeezing as many cabinets as possible into the room.
“In my kitchen at home, we’ve kept the wall units to a minimum because that was a way to save quite a lot of money on the joinery,” says Harding. It also gives the room an airier, more spacious feel, and allows space for artworks and lights on the walls, to make it feel more homely, less clinical.
To ensure you have enough storage, Harding suggests a single tall cupboard with floor-to-ceiling shelves: “In our house, everything gets dumped in there – extra packets of pasta and cans of tomatoes, the Magimix, salad bowls and vases. That one cupboard is far more useful than a run of wall ones, where everything gets lost at the back.”
Cushions
A well-chosen collection of cushions is a quick and inexpensive way to give a room a lift – and a non-committal route for the nervous decorator to experiment with colour. In a room with neutral upholstery that could do with a little life, a patterned cushion adds instant personality: Harding suggests using a mix of different shapes and styles, for example a plain colour, a floral print and a stripe, for extra impact. Swap them around between rooms from time to time to get a fresh look.
Where to splurge
The sofa
For those with young children or pets, investing in a beautiful sofa might seem counterintuitive. But, says Harding, a cheap, throwaway option is never a good idea.
“People think it’s going to get ruined so they might as well just get a cheap sofa, but I would say if you have kids or pets, you need a sofa that has a certain robustness so that it will stand up to use,” she points out. “You can always re-cover it in five to 10 years’ time, but to buy a sofa thinking that you’re going to throw it out in a few years and knowing that it’s not terribly well made, I think that’s a real false economy.”
Her tip is to look for a sofa with a solid timber frame, made with a traditional method, and in a classic style that will stand the test of time, so that you can keep it for life. “Go for something simple: you can dress it up or down with accessories as your style changes,” she says.
In terms of upholstery fabrics, “Blue is a colour I seem to specify quite a lot for projects.”
For hotels, she uses fabrics with a rub count of 30,000 – this being the number of rubs an upholstery fabric can take during testing before showing signs of wear and tear: a good rule of thumb for a busy home environment, too. And it’s possible to have a velvet sofa that is also practical, but look for “intelligent velvet”, which is stain-resistant and easy to clean.
The dining table
A good dining table is the place where family memories are made; and, says Harding, it’s worth investing in a well-made wooden table that will age stylishly, and that can take a few knocks and scrapes along the way.
“Think about where the legs of the table are, because that affects how user-friendly it is,” she advises. “If the legs are in an awkward place, or if it’s not comfortable to sit at the ends because of how the structure works, that’s going to chew up some valuable seating space.”
Her tip is to look for a table with legs that are set in quite far from the edges of the top, so that people can sit comfortably all the way around. “We’ve designed an Arts & Crafts-inspired table with rounded ends, which gives it a softness,” she says. If the table is going to be set against a wall with a built-in banquette, this type of design will allow people to get in and out more easily. Harding is also a fan of using a dining bench on one side of the table, as a good way of maximising space: “Go for a seat cushion with a loose cover so that you can whip it off and throw it in the washing machine.”
Storage
The key to an organised life is the right storage. That requires a bit of thought, and, in the case of fitted cupboards, quite a lot of money; but, as Harding points out, a hallway full of coats and shoes, with no system to keep them in order, will always make your house feel untidy, so it’s worth creating a dedicated space for them.
In certain instances, fitted joinery isn’t the only option: she suggests a chest of drawers in the kitchen, for example, is invaluable as a place to hide undealt-with post, paperwork and children’s homework.
Elsewhere, built-in shelves and cupboards can be the best use of space. “If you can take storage out of your bedroom, for example, that’s a real opportunity,” says Harding. “Sometimes having a smaller bedroom so that you can create a separate walk-in wardrobe can really declutter a space.”
Occasional tables
The coffee table is often an afterthought in a living room, yet it plays an important role – as Harding puts it, “somewhere you can put all that stuff that’s always lying around – papers or games or remote controls.”
Many people err on the side of too small, which can throw off the balance of a room, so look for a table that fits with the proportions of your seating, and go for the best your budget will allow. In smaller rooms, a round coffee table is, says Harding, “very forgiving”, will help save on space, and won’t look too big and blocky. For ultimate functionality, look for a table or ottoman with built-in storage, so that you can lift the lid up and quickly sweep any clutter inside.
In a living room, having one or two side tables that can be moved around when needed enables a degree of flexibility; and a console table that can double as an occasional desk is a useful addition to a corner of a living room, kitchen or bedroom.
NiX by Nicola Harding is available here.