ALL ROOMS BRIGHT AND BEAUTIFUL

By SHAGORIKA EASWAR

According to celebrated interior designer and personal stylist Estee Stanley, real luxury is having a home that blends comfort with personality, elegance with ease.

It means being perfectly set up to relax with family and friends.

When I was growing up, it was the era of the “formal” living room, where you couldn’t as much as have a drink without fearing for your life. Couches were simply for sitting completely still, which was a major challenge when your skin was becoming one with the thick layer of protective plastic. Chic, right?

I laugh out loud reading the first few lines of her book.

Because I grew up in a similar time, too. I know those rooms.

Plastic covered couches, television sets draped with covers loving embroidered by the lady of the house, holiday mementos locked into cabinets with glass doors...

Thankfully, my own home was nothing like that. My father was hugely interested in interior design and in using local, indigenous materials. So we had Kadappa stone shelves, bamboo screens, lots of potted plants in colourful planters, dhurries on the floor. And cane and rattan furniture which was reupholstered periodically because our dog and cats had the run of the house and the couch by the sunny window was a favourite haunt. A Royal Doulton tea service shared shelf space with bowls and coffee mugs from Chinhat, that little village near Lucknow, once famous for its colourful engraved pottery.

It was a calm, beautiful space that was also very welcoming and warm.

Stanley creates rooms that reflect her eclectic but tailored, effortlessly chic style. She offers ideas and styling tricks for how to make your own design inspirations and vision work in a real-life way. Best of all, she reveals the secrets to creating rooms that change with you, so you’ll still love where you are 10 years from now as much – or more – than ever.

Her home design and fashion clients include Jessica Biel, Justin Timberlake, Patrick Dempsey, Eva Mendes and the Olsen twins.

The captions accompanying the beautiful photographs are tips in themselves.

Create a cozy reading nook by adding a chair and an end table to a low-traffic area to ensure that every corner of the space gets utilized. Accessorizing each nook allows you to design vignettes for special pieces you’ve invested in that don’t necessarily have a place in the central area of the room.

All the pieces don’t have to match in order to work well together. Aim for a diverse mix of items that fall within the same palette to create a look that is tied together yet unique.

And she’s not above gently admonishing parents of unruly kids.

“When parents say they ‘can’t’ have certain pieces in their home because their children may ruin them, it makes me crazy. Whether it’s a delicate glass coffee table or a light-coloured couch, you have to set the standards for your kids’ behaviour rather than forgo having pieces that capture your personal style.”

Her outdoor spaces are to sigh for – bright, airy, filled with greenery and strung lights and colourful cushions that invite one to linger.

While she loves pale, soothing shades of cream and white, and shies away from bold or statement colours, she also plays with “pops of colour” in small doses. Some of her table settings and the walls and floors in bathrooms look a bit too busy for my taste, but then I realize this is not about finding a book that echoes my ideas but finding one that nudges me to try something new. And those ideas there are aplenty.

Move small pieces of furniture around! Reupholster! Repeat?