Shop your home

Your next interior restyle could be closer than you think, as Jennifer Morgan analyses the growing trend for sourcing new looks in-house

With living costs soaring, décor trends being replaced by looks with longevity, and a growing insistence on sustainability and craftsmanship, how are we meant to get our interiors fix? Thankfully, the demand for fast home fashion seems to have slowed, but that doesn’t mean we don’t still crave new, quick and easy restyles for our rooms.

Enter ‘shop your home’, a concept that has been on the radars of designers and declutterers for years, but now seems even more appealing, and topical, than ever before.

‘Shopping your home is a way of refreshing your spaces by restyling with the items you already own,’ says art director and designer Emily Hensen, author of the new book,

Create: Creativity before Consumption. ‘I started talking about it in the first lockdown of 2020, making a video for Instagram to help people breathe new life into the same rooms they’d be stuck in for weeks/months. It’s a concept that aligns perfectly with my ethos of consuming less stuff, particularly new things.’

‘If you love interiors, the chances are you have more beautiful things than you can possibly display all at once,’ confesses Emma Morton-turner, stylist and founder of Inside Stylists (insidestylists.com). ‘With that in mind, it’s incredibly easy to change the look of a room with a few simple swaps — whether from a cupboard of hidden or forgotten gems, or from another room in your home.’

‘As a set designer and stylist, I’m frequently changing things around at home — call it an occupational hazard!’ laughs Emily. ‘I appreciate not everyone will want the upheaval so often, but if you find yourself getting bored of a space or perhaps not wanting to spend time in a room because it isn’t comfortable or inviting, shopping your home is worth considering before you try to solve the problem by buying more stuff.

'The aim is to reevaluate your belongings and see how you can shuffle them around to create a fresh look, so you immediately save money. Our homes can get stale if they stay the same. Shopping them allows us the chance to think creatively about what brings us joy and how we should use our spaces, experimenting until we love them again,’ declares Emily.

And shopping your home doesn’t cost a penny — just your time. ‘It’s the quickest and most economical way of giving multiple spaces an instant refresh,’ says Wil Law,

home design stylist at John Lewis & Partners ( johnlewis.com). ‘It’s a great way of testing or creating flow within your home, as you can see how comfortable pieces look from one room to the next.’

Emily, Emma and Wil all love a soft furnishing swap around. ‘Cushions on your bed could be moved to give your sofa a lift, while that throw in your living room could just make the perfect bedspread,’ says Wil. ‘Cushion swaps give instant impact,’ agrees Emma, ‘along with rugs — a coloured rug might bring new energy to a calm space, and be just the change needed.’

Annie Williams, who lives in a new-build home in Surrey, loves to rejig her cushions. ‘I bring them all into one space and try new groupings, playing with textures and sizes. As my home is neutral, they are easy to swap around when I fancy trying something different. I do the same with throws, too. My husband once quizzed me on if I’d bought yet more cushions for the living room, when I’d just swapped them for the ones from the spare room!' she laughs.

‘It’s about starting small and building your confidence in knowing what will work,’ Emma

'My husband quizzed me on if I’d bought yet more cushions for the living room. I’d just swapped them for ones in the spare room!'

continues. ‘Look for that one area that needs a freshen up — it could be that bookshelf that hasn’t been changed in forever. Begin by removing a few books, then place some back flat on the shelf, adding a vase or candle on top. You’ll have only displaced a few books to rehome, yet will have added interest with the new arrangement.’

But why stop at cushions and books? ‘What about moving furniture around too,’ says Wil. ‘This will allow you to update your layout, which is a sure-fire way of breathing fresh life into a space. Play around and move that rarely-sat-in armchair from the living room to create a cosy reading nook elsewhere in your home, teaming it with a cushion, lamp and small side table.’

‘When you sit watching TV, you see the same view of your room. Just swapping the furniture around gives a different aspect and will make you feel like you have a completely new space — without having to get the paint brushes out or buy anything,’ agrees Emma. ‘For me it’s the clever little swaps that can instantly update a room — like moving art around or hanging it in a different way. Rather than one large picture on a wall, why not add smaller pieces around the outside to create a gallery?’

‘My best advice would be to avoid getting stuck on the idea of things being only for certain rooms,’ says Emily. ‘Many pieces, big and small, are adaptable. I love swapping lighting — a taller lamp pinched from the living room might make more of a statement on a bedside table in a bedroom needing some drama, while a mirror moved from the same bedroom might add dimension and bounce light back into a dark hallway.’

Of course, if something isn’t quite right in its old — or new — location, there is always the chance to give it a little

‘glow up’. Zoe Manns (@zoemannslondon) loves finding alternative uses for vintage pieces, making lampshades out of old scarves, dyeing milliners’ raffia to make extra-large lampshades, creating curtains and bedspreads out of tablecloths, turning pairs of jeans into quirky cushions, and repurposing vases into lamps. ‘Not only do I enjoy that it's obviously more environmentally friendly, often the quality is superior, and it means that a very unique look is created usually on a limited budget,’ she shares.

Don’t forget to spread the word about your newly found interiors passion. ‘If you really only have items that are specific to your current scheme and nothing seems to be working, why not have a swapping party where you get your friends and family together to swap homeware items,’ says Emma. ‘The chances are, you’ll have something they love and vice versa.’

‘My sister moved house recently and swapped her white living room furniture with a friend who wanted a change from her oak range,' reveals Annie. 'They both got a new look for nothing other than a few trips in their cars.'

‘It’s worth looking at sites like Facebook Marketplace, Freegle and Freecycle, where local people are looking to rehome their furniture and accessories to avoid them going into landfill,' says Emma. 'You’ll be surprised what people are happy to let go of, and it might just be the vase/lamp/side table/cushion/rug you’ve been looking for.'

‘The beauty of shopping your home is that it's a symbiotic practice,’ says Wil. ‘When you take from one room to refresh another, you are also giving that room an update, either by decluttering or replacing what's taken with something from another area.’