Decor wars
Could a home stylist save your marriage?
The third design of £76-a-roll paper to adorn our walls in as many weeks caused more ding-dongs between my husband and I last year than we’d had the rest of our marriage. He dismissed the first paper, a subtle ivory stripe, as “too safe”. I had it replaced with a slate grey design, which he liked but I deemed too dark. Meanwhile, the wall lights protruded so far that they would, he protested, leave him needing stitches should he have to cross the landing in the dark to tend to our son.
This was the point at which I nearly brained him myself, and conceded we needed outside help – given this was only one element of the major extension to our five-bedroom barn conversion near Nottingham – before we make even more costly mistakes.
Like a lot of people in the same situation, I didn’t want the expense or formality of an interior designer. But for anyone who spent Christmas downcast about their dated decor, or has started the new year at loggerheads over a mooted living room overhaul, there is a solution: the fast-growing breed of approachable, affordable home stylists who could save both money and marriages.
Alex Sheldon, who founded The Home Stylist as a one-woman band, now has nine stylists working with her, such is the demand – not least from warring couples.
“We’ve had many clients who haven’t spoken to each other for weeks,” she says. “It’s understandable. Our homes make us emotional, and in my experience most men don’t want their wives to make changes.
“They’re perfectly happy with a house the way it is, whereas women look at their homes differently once the kids are at school, for example, and they don’t need furnishings to be as practical any more. A lot of them work from home, too, so they want it to feel lovely, yet it doesn’t.”
Similarly, Angela Laffan and Melanie Alsford, who co-founded Cocoon Home Styling in Richmond six years ago, find a huge number of their clients are couples who can’t agree over a revamp. For £395 they’ll visit you at home to understand your personality and needs, then devise a mood board of ideas plus a corresponding shopping list and numbers for tradesmen to carry out any work. They’ll even do the shopping themselves for an extra fee. “We created our business to bridge the gap between interior design and having no help at all,” explains Laffan, 48. “We describe it as therapy for the home and the client. When spouses are at odds… we provide mediation, devising a series of compromises. Perhaps he’ll accept her preference for a pink sofa if she lets him incorporate his favourite armchair.”
According to Charles Leon, president of the British Institute of
‘In my experience, most men don’t want their wives to make changes’
Interior Design: “A stylist will give them a look that matches where they want to be and how they want to be perceived, whereas an interior designer will address the behavioural, cultural and visceral issues and will come up with solutions to problems of lifestyle, space planning and ergonomics.”
In reality, of course, most people only want the “look”. Professional home styling started in California (where else?) in the Nineties, with Hollywood celebrities staging their homes for photoshoots and TV work. It then became a popular tool for selling property, à la Sarah Beeny. With Yougov showing 44 per cent of home-owners are choosing to extend and improve rather than move, it’s an affordable means of giving home owners the gloss to make them want to stay put.
Gemma Hunt, a 39-year-old physiotherapist, credits Cocoon’s styling mediation with resolving the five-year impasse with Andy, 40, her banker husband, over the decor in the living room of their Surrey home.
“I wanted a relaxing adult space with neutral colours and classic furniture. Andy was hell-bent on bright shades and an L-shaped sofa to put his feet up on and watch football,” she says. “I even contemplated knocking a wall down to accommodate it.”
But she called for help before making an expensive mistake.
“Cleverly, Angela and Mel focused on a watercolour that Andy and I had chosen together as an anniversary present a few years ago. It hadn’t occurred to us to start with something that we already agreed on. Then they created a mood board for the room using the teals, pinks and golds that dominate the painting. We ended up ordering everything from their shopping list.”
Hunt is awaiting delivery of two sofas, one teal velvet, the other a neutral weave, and a buttoned, gold velvet footstool – where Andy can rest his feet – plus cushions and rugs in shades of all three. As Sheldon puts it: “Even small changes can make everything fall into place. Including marital harmony.”