New Year, New Design Aesthetic?

THERE IS A LINE from a Bruce Springsteen song that goes: “I wanna change my clothes, my hair, my face“⏤and while I don’t want to change my face, I do like to change my clothes (often), and my hair (sometimes⏤in fact, just last week). And now it seems, I want to change my design aesthetic. A friend once asked me if I changed my décor tastes to match where I happen to be living at the time (she was visiting us in Spain), and I realise that yes, yes I guess I do.

When we lived in Edinburgh, it was all toiles and chintzes and mohair throws on sofas by a roaring fire; and in Spain, it was sheer billowy curtains over juliet balconies and wicker everything. Here, in the English countryside, our Grade II listed stone cottage is ceiling beams, ruffled stripes, soft pink walls, and back to roaring fires again.

The general rule is that my taste in interiors changes with each new environment, except, we’re still here in the countryside and my tastes have suddenly changed? I’m perplexed by being drawn lately to less maximalist surroundings⏤not minimalism, of course, (never that) but something a little more contemporary, with metal and concrete mixed in, even. Ornate Austerity.

Perhaps it’s something left over from the start of the new year⏤new beginnings and all⏤but whatever the reason, I’ve been feeling like clearing everything out and starting again. Here are some of the inspiration photos gathered along the way over the past few weeks that reveal a new design aesthetic is taking shape…

Not sure why I am so drawn to this metal storage component, but there’s something about it that doesn’t look cold. Perhaps it’s the grey wood flooring, but whatever the reason, it looks like it might add just the right contemporary feel to a primary bedroom while still being functional.

Beautiful fluid curves in a material that is synonymous with rigidity. Adding more metal to the kitchen seems to be a theme lately…

There is something really appealing about the textures in the concrete wall behind the bed. Again, the material, while industrial, doesn’t look cold, but complements the crisp bed linens perfectly.