If you read my blog or follow me on Instagram you’ll know that I like fashion, I’m a little bit beauty obsessed and food is up there in the top five loves of my life. But – interiors and styling up my home is my one true love!
Ever since we bought our first ‘proper’ home just over a year ago it’s been full steam ahead to make this little Victoria terrace our dream place to live. After almost 5 years of renting and looking after other people’s magnolia or white-washed walls it was time for us to release our personality into our home life. Although I think our rooms are pretty funky – they have their own themes as you walk through the house, I think I’ve created a basis of timeless style that can grow and develop with us as a couple and in the future, a family.
To me, timeless style means fantastic basics that create a platform for your home and style to expand and develop. But, how do you do that if you love trend-led pieces and want to inject some personality into your living areas?
How to create timeless style in two steps
- Quality pieces
I always try to pick a key piece of furniture that will last. For example, in our living room we currently have a simple oatmeal coloured sofa that we’ve had for 4 years now and has moved with us through 3 houses and flats. Paired with our mid-brown wooden floors these two things are a great base to bring in any style – whatever your taste. Of course, a sofa is one of the biggest investment pieces you’ll ever buy, so you’ll want to choose one that will last a lifetime and Habitat definitely has some gorgeous options. - Be simple with colour
If you’ve seen our house, you’ll know that we LOVE colour. Green, blue, grey – each room has it’s own shade. But, a plain colour on the walls is also completely timeless compared to printed wallpaper that could go out of style or your personal taste. Adding interest to walls with shelving units, plants on stands and gallery walls is one of our favourite things to do to add our style to our timeless base.
Each room is different for us. We have a bit of a boho / aztec / travel vibe in our living room with our holiday themed prints for Barcelona and Prague, two destinations that really mean a lot to us both, loads of plants and cacti and our green walls which make me think of the jungle, plants and nature. But, it’s still going with our rules of quality and timeless furniture and a nice plain wall colour. Check out our living room transformation here for some snaps of how it looked before if you’re feeling nosy!
Our dining room is more of an eclectic, industrial and interesting mix with blues, yellows, pinks and gold (trust me, it works!) mixed with industrial furniture and a couple of retro and vintage mid century nods. We have a new but 60s style side board paired with a vintage and up cycled bar cart that we cleaned up and added a marble top too. Every room has its own vibe and I love this about my house, but they all have a base that is completely timeless. I have a plain colour on every room’s walls, a classic floor choice and a statement, well made piece of furniture that would look at home in anyone’s home. This way, when we come to sell our house one day, hopefully people will be able to see their own style in our house and past our The Smiths prints and gin-filled bar cart.
I’m chatting to you guys about timeless style today because Habitat have a fantastic competition in which, if you’re a home and interiors blogger you could win the sofa of your dreams by explaining what timeless style means to you. You guys know I love to chat about my house, homeware and interiors so this was a perfect excuse for me to show you some more snaps of our living room, a few months after the post I’ve linked above for the transformation. And, as much as I love my little oatmeal squishy sofa, as I said, we’ve had it for about 4 years and it could be time for it to go to a better home and become someone else’s timeless base for their living room. I’ve got my eye on the Lyle brown leather sofa which I think would look fantastic in our living room at the moment.
Another plus point about having a style that you are set on and that is pretty timeless is that you can interchange pieces and not have to change anything else in the room to make it work. I work on this rule with my wardrobe too – if it doesn’t go with anything in your wardrobe already and you’ll have to buy something else to go with it – don’t buy it! Popping on a few gorgeous printed cushions can instantly boost up your sofa from comfy to super styled – I also love Habitat’s range of soft furnishing and cushions that can take a timeless piece to trend-based in absolutely no time.
I’ll be sharing this post on Instagram – check it out with #OriginalDesign and stay tuned to my grid for more home snaps and updates as time goes on.
Photography by the lovely Tiff from Creatiff Media.
This post is not sponsored by Habitat, it is an entry into their Win the Sofa of Your Dream Competition.
