My very own Life Unstyled

One question I get asked a lot is “What’s your house like?” People always assume, as a stylist, that my place must be amazing. And there was a time when it was pretty cool (my old house in LA was quite wild – colourful, eclectic, cluttered with interesting stuff. Have a quick look here to see it when it was in Anthology magazine – it was bonkers! And so different from my style now). But since we moved back to London in 2011 we’ve been renting and you know how hard it can be to make a rented place your own? Especially in the UK where it’s tricky to convince your landlord to let you hang a picture, let alone paint a wall. Combine that with a general busy-ness that’s prevented me from really putting in the time, and the result was a not very exciting home.

We’re now in our second rented place, a modern apartment quite different from the terraced Victorian house we’ve been in for four years, and still a sort of temporary home for me. I thought maybe I would share a few candid shots of my less than perfect home, all in the name of the Life Unstyled ethos of embracing imperfection. As I mentioned here, 2016 was a rough year personally and it had the effect of making me pare things down at home, simplify, declutter (although as a stylist, my version of decluttered is still someone else’s idea of too much shit!) Gone is the colour, pattern and kitsch; in is the neutral, natural and simple.

In my never-ending quest to make you, my lovely readers, feel better about your own less than perfect homes (just a guess…), I’m sharing with you these unedited, unstyled pictures of my own less than perfect, unfinished, and untidy flat. My personal favourite is the one where I stood my vintage side table on my coffee table – a make-shift laptop stand for a day of endless client Skype calls from the sofa. Feel better now? Enjoy!

For more real home interiors inspiration, pick up a copy of my latest book Life Unstyled, filled with eclectic, perfectly imperfect homes from around the world.