Floral inspired schemes will always be in fashion, it’s the style and colour of flowers that evolve and move with the trends. My latest styling for Homestyle looked at 3 set-ups; modern country, monochrome and Liberty, by Liberty I mean repetitive patterns that have a slightly whimsical and traditional feel, often small pattern repeats with nature inspired illustrations, typical colours are deep purples, reds and greens.
Our green velvet sofa added richness to the scheme and created a beautiful contrast against the busy wallpaper, it also links nicely to the botanical trend. We used more ‘flowers’ than ‘plants’ in this shoot but some hanging plants would have worked, especially if they were a lighter green or perhaps a reclaimed shelf behind the sofa for some cactus, ferns and succulents. I used a floor tray for my collection of botanicals but a more practical solution (as this was just a set in a studio!) would be to place the items on a low-level ottoman.
A rule of thumb when planning your furniture is to make sure your coffee table or ottoman sits below the line of your sofa cushions as visually, the eye should be able to step-up to view items in layers i.e rug, coffee table, sofa and then pictures. When using pattern on pattern just follow two simple rules 1) be sure to mix your pattern with some plain to make it easier on the eye and 2) stick to a palette of no more than 3/4 colours.
Don’t feel that you have to keep a busy wall clear from artwork, just keep the image simply and complimentary to the scheme.
This chair design is really full on and only works because we have the big expanse of green sofa to break up the two patterns.
The green velvet sofa was really soft and comfortable and the cost was about £1,600 (from Sofa Workshop) not a bad price as the quality was fantastic. Multiyork have just launched a new collection of floral sofas in conjunction with Monsoon Home, worth a look. Photographs by Jo Henderson
