These are the very best that I have collected along the way. They will lift any space.....
1 Unblock your windows! Walk down any street in any town and see a good 25% of window area filled up with curtains, blinds, pottery dogs and all manner of detritus. Extend curtain poles 300mm beyond reveals to clear curtains from windows and let the light in. Even windows that are double/triple glazed still lose more heat than walls, so if you don't let light through them there's no point having them. The strip across the top is where the brightest light comes in so don't block that either.
2 White walls are best! Once you've let the light in, bounce it round the space with light paint, the lighter the better, and white is best of all. Compared with white, any drop in the lightness (chroma) of your finish gives a disproportionate, exponential even, drop in reflectivity. So if you use anything even minutely darker than peak white, your space will be duller, you will feel duller living in it, and you'll use more electricity lighting it.
3 White ceilings are best! The ceiling is your great reflector - watch any photographer - and the above applies.
4 Go straight through in one colour! (The lighter the better, of course!) It's an unbeatable trick I learned at the knee of a posse of Academy award-winning set designers. It gives a solidity like nothing else. Try it.
5 The bigger the better! If an idea doesn't work it's usually because it isn't big enough. One big idea (or item, or finish) beats several small ones any day of the week where interiors are concerned.
6 A space needs to be a space! Don't fill it up, in particular don't block the middle of a space. It blocks the Feng Shui and wrecks a space in one fell swoop.
7 K I S S stands for Keep It Simple Stupid! (At least in design terms.) Absolutely right - do some throwing out.
8 Mirrors are your secret weapon! They multiply all that light you've just let in - think of a lighthouse. Put one on a wall that you'd rather wasn't there (to 'dissolve' the wall) and put it reflecting something good. Oh, and make it a BIG mirror!
9 Catch the light! A bit of shiny bright is the final touch that lifts the Feng Shui and raises the bar. The Georgians with their sparkly silver discovered it a long time ago.
10 Add your own rule breaker! Fly in the face of all these rules by adding something you absolutely love, not something you think will please other people. And hey presto!
These white on white interiors show the way, and white is a lovely blank sheet of paper to start the year. Happy 2012!
White on white interiors, all from Flickr under CC BY License
