We are not all one thing, all the time...

“What’s your favourite colour?”

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”

“What is it you do then?”

A wise man I know once suggested to me, “You should do Interior Design”. This wasn’t a big conversation and to me it kind of came out of nowhere. I can’t particularly remember exactly when it was, probably around my late teens. I didn’t act on it immediately but it just sat there with me over the next few years like a blurred memory that would keep resurfacing.

I couldn’t do Interior Design, could I?

Growing up I was always classed as the ‘tidy one’ of the family. I’d happily spend my Sunday afternoons sorting my bedroom; polishing, dusting, vaccing, clearing and organising my drawers and rearranging my shelves while listening to the Top 40 to tape my favourite songs on my cassette player. At Christmas my list would say ‘things for my room’, cushions, lamps, candles, ornaments (cos that was a thing in the 90’s?).

I would pretend my room was my apartment, once it was tidy I would turn the big light off and use my lamps, candles and fairy lights to make it cosy then either lay on my freshly made bed or dance in the mirror to all the songs I had recorded. Dreaming up the day I would have my own house and what I would do to it.

I should just say at this point I did also have a fun filled childhood with lots of friends and playing and would also ask Santa for cool stuff too, I wasn’t a complete loser.

Admittedly as I got older my tidiness slipped and I was less bothered by how symmetrical my shelves were or if my clothes were screwed up on the floor but I still took pride in the layout and colour scheme, opting for the ever popular at the time lilac with Chinese symbol themed objects galore. As I created mood boards and picked paint colours, at the age of 12, this was to be my first proper dabble with Interior Design. This doesn’t mean I’d do it as a job when I’m older though, does it??

My favourite TV shows were the before and after reveals; Changing Rooms, 60 Minute Makeover, How Clean Is Your House, House Doctor, Better Homes (listing some right classics here) I was just obsessed at how quickly (the trick of TV) you could transform a space by just changing colours, furniture, layout. So many different tastes and ideas to create such unique spaces for each individual.

I also watched soaps and sitcoms where I was just fascinated by the sets, just off camera would be a wall or old warehouse but this little stage had been set to create a backdrop to the scene, making a made-up home in a tiny box. I still love all this now, creating miniatures for dollhouses, or watching films that have created such mundane home settings that you may only see for a split second yet they have such an impact on building the characters and making their story more believable. Something I would just love to be involved in, but that’s not a realistic job for someone like me, right??

Life goes on and you find yourself applying for jobs that are in your reach, that will pay for the girls’ holidays and nights out; a local cafe, office work, retail…gaining all the ‘really important’ experience in customer service, admin and people skills that you can add to your CV, even though deep down you dread getting up for work, you’re not always in the mood to smile through work politics and when people ask you what it is you do you say ‘serve coffee’, or ‘reply to emails’ but deep down you want to say ‘design rooms, create mood-boards, do up old furniture…make things’ as when you’re not in work this is what you are doing and when you grow up you’re going to work for yourself anyway. But what age is grown up? And what is it you’re actually going to do?

Then that voice from all those years ago comes back to you… ‘You should do Interior Design’.

It was there the whole time, part of your everyday, brought you joy at different stages of your life, yet you just didn’t see it. For some reason ‘work’ seems to be that thing you have to set your alarm for, put clothes on you wouldn’t necessarily wear through choice or particularly feel comfortable in but mostly spend the majority of your time doing things you have no real interest in and spend hours around people you have nothing in common with. You know what it is you want to do you just don’t know how to do it.

I always think it’s really fascinating that our childhood gives the biggest clue to our likes and skillset yet we almost forget been that young or dismiss it as not relevant anymore. But that was your foundation, your mind was fresh and open to new discoveries daily. You were able to seek out the things that made you happy so much easier without the distraction of ‘adult worries’.

These things don’t always have to be so specific but the clues are there. For me as I reached adulthood I started out with the end goal of being an Interior Designer yet I’d forgotten the simple things that had naturally lead me to that been an option and actually my experiences since then have taken me in a slightly different direction. I don’t just like to style and organise spaces, I like to upcycle furniture, design my own prints, nostalgia, collecting gorgeous vintage items, look into the history of people and spaces to inform my designs and create backstories. I like to write (hence the attempt at a blog.) I like to practice healthy wellbeing and showcase it through design to inspire others. I have done all these things seperately over the years but as my business has slowly evolved, and will hopefully continue to do so, they have naturally come together to form what I believe to be Interior Therapy (I will go into more detail on this in my next blog post). We are allowed to change and adapt as we grow and just enjoy the process of what it is we enjoy doing, and if you can turn it into a career then even better but if not you can add your own joy to your every day your own way. It's not about having to know the end goal, or having one particular favourite of something. So a bit like our homes, yes they change as fashions change but, more importantly, as we do too, as we choose to make space for all the things that bring us joy and tell our story.

Would I colour drench my bedroom in lilac now? Hell no (though never say never)

Should I have an idea of what it is I want to do now I’m grown up? It'd be nice but there’s always a possibility I might run away with the circus yet too.

Do I have a response when people ask what it is I do? Kind of, but it’s not just one thing…

(Thanks for reading my ramblings. I have lots more to say on all these things and more so hopefully if you enjoyed it you will subscribe to my blog posts by filling out the form on my website or just get in touch if you think I can help you in anyway.)

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