INTERIOR DESIGN CALENDAR

I used to like doing Interior design projects pre covid and pre artisan art.

I got a design degree at college so I should have some useful contributions to this idea.

We actually did an interior design brief, set by a lecturer from a nearby University.

We had to design the furniture and Interior design for an ugly 70’s style flat.

I thought it looked awful so decided to try and disguise the small box effect and make it look like a house/home.

I decided to spend my half term holiday working on this project.

My college friend decided to follow a band round all their gigs all holiday.

I didn’t want to join her, I couldn’t understand why she couldn’t just watch one concert.

Victoriana Style

As I’d recently done a talk on this subject, I decided to create a Victorian theme.

I can’t remember the finished design, but I had to make one item for the room.

I made a Victorian cushion out of black satin, fringing and quilted it with layering, sequins and beads.

I wasn’t expecting a brilliant mark but did expect a pass at least.

First day back after the holiday a rock chick type had spent all her holiday getting drunk and hadn’t done any of her project; she got a piece of hessian and spray painted it with a mexican design.

It had more pattern than this, but try finding aztec design in 2025.

We all went into the classroom and the lecturer appeared.

To cut a waffly story short he Praised her work that obviously still had wet paint and either failed me or gave me a rubbish mark.

My tutor started a blazing row with him and remarked my project after he had left.

Looking back I was a goth I suppose, but I was at art college where they encourage you to be creative.

Stiff boring briefs are for when you get a job.

Time will prove the wiser

It wasn’t the 70’s when we did the project but some of those rubbish flats are still there even now.

Most of them have been demolished as they are awful or are being demolished because they are falling down due to bad craftsmanship and unimaginative design.

The larger detached houses in 70’s style are possibly a problem now as they just look weird and dated. As people have invested in them not sure what will happen to them.

Weird 70’s Architecture that possibly costs the same price to purchase as desirable Detached houses. Adding odd extensions doesn’t really help.

If you turn your attention to Victorian Houses however, these were fortress style buildings built to last and full of character.

This is actually 17th-century, but my favourite one on the google search and still proves the point.

Although I may not do black again I have actually seen a black and red theme at a garden center and I thought it worked really well. Maybe Victorian romanticism.

The room design for the project was actually inspired by the book the Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter.

We were living in a 17th Century mansion at the time. I don’t think the dry lecturer really got our degree course.

The Arts and Craft Movement

This was a craft movement against mass production and Victorian Satanic Mill owners.

We grew up in the remnants of a Victorian Satanic Mill town.

Looking back I think my art college tried to salvage me from my families dark depressing past.

The feminist teachers definately lifted me up and I really liked them.

When we were little we sat eating our fish and chips, (as they didn’t cost much.), in a nearby graveyard. We would read the gravestones. A lot of the graves were little children that had died in the satanic mills.

In Victorian times evil mill owners treated children as slaves; similar to the slave trade but instead with poor white children and families, this trade still went on for a long time after Victorian times.

William Blake

They brought Indian families to the uk to use as slaves also, they treated them even worse, but a lot got free and undercut evil shop owners by opening up their corner shops at unusual hours or got market stalls to sell mill products rather than making them.

All that has gone now.

Health and safety changed mass production for the better and minimum wage.

To get to the point.

The arts and craft movement believed in quality hand made products that lasted as oppose to factory rubbish that broke and even killed children in its production, (before health and safety and free schools.)

Have to say my room design was inspired by the arts and craft movement. If my cushion had been in beige and peach it would be really popular at the moment ~ this is twee victoriana.

Quality Craftsmanship as oppose to building box houses for profit

As I live in a boxy dolls house type building have to say I hate it.

I think you have to look beyond the estate agent bumpf and think craftsmanship, quality, home and long term investment.

Once you have a perfect home, I think you want quality Interior design products.

I spent a week making a cushion that was hand embroidered.

Maybe I wasted my time or maybe that is what people want?

If I had tried to sell the cushion it would of cost too much to make a profit.

Asda would of undercut the price of it.

Maybe herein lies the problem of quality?

Have to say I would buy Asda and not hand made as it used to be good quality.

Balancing the budget

Since college I’ve changed loads.

I used to buy hideous homeware as we were setting up a buisness so just bought cheap products.

Think I’ve lost my way with interior design as well as fashion.

If money is no object I’d go for high end Quality Interior design.

That was where I was at at college and where I’d like to continue.

Introducing an Interior Design calendar when all you can get is rubbish quality Artisan homeware

Have to say Artisan is handmade but worse quality than Asda pre covid.

All the Interior design shops I would of gone to have shut down, around the same time as the fat acceptance movement and BBC going boring and weird.

I’ve got a lot of work to do with christmas coming up but when I finish the slimming and fashion calendars and christmas might add Interior design.

I had thought of doing an M.A. in design, but met people who had done it and they had ended up as teachers.

Also in an Artisan Magazine I purchased I found they were now teaching toy design at M.A. level as oppose to textile design or art.

You can only hope someone sorts this mess out.

Imagine there must be a lot of people wanting to do interior design projects in their homes but no Interior design shops left to shop in.

I did the drinks cabinet project so maybe if I plough through the Artisan snow I might manage something.

I could do the cushion project if I had a fully stocked craftroom.

I’m really rusty at stuff like that but I suppose it would come back.

A kitten cushion would be a nice project.

Feel a twinkling of inspiration and hope that had gone years ago.

Hopefully I’ll make the dress projects also.

Conclusion

When I’ve finished the slimming and fashion calendars, weekend TV and Christmas, will start an Interior design Calendar.

I will not to do Goth this time lol!!!

I don’t want that either now although I do like Victoriana.

One thing I’m mulling over at the moment is carpet colours.

Beige looks good, but in England it doesn’t work, it just goes a muddy colour.

Before beige England was mocked for its bad interior design taste.

The answer is a patterned carpet, but one that isn’t bad taste.

If Interior design shops come back I would study this like fashion and slimming.

The slimming Calendar works so that is brilliant and completed.

The fashion calendar doesn’t work yet until someone sorts fashion out; the links are all there though and will be brilliant when we are allowed to have clothes again.

What the Interior Design Calendar will be is seasonal Interior design essentials, designer products, bargain products, projects, knowledge on Interior design, choosing colours and products.

The obvious one here is purchasing throws and warmer interior design products for autumn and Winter.

Obviously Christmas Interior design.

Hopefully Interior design shops will come back soon.

This would make the calendar work and would be both easy and enjoyable for me to do.

Wondering if you want shops like Ikea and Asda to go back to normal too.

Hope you are managing to cope in rubbishy covid times.

Hope you like this idea.

Saphire