On this first episode I discuss the new BBC/Netflix show "Interior Design Masters", I chat with super talented Interior designer and editorial stylist Gemma Gear about her time working with me on the same show and how she predicts future trends for the "The Ideal Home Show".
She then gives me the insight into how she styles and create editorial features for "Good homes" and the "ideal Home" Magazines.
Finally I share with you the top tips of how to arrange and hang you art work on the wall.
www.thatsSoGemma.com
www.theDiydoers.com
Wayne Perrey on Instagram and twitter
Thorndown Information:
To receive 15% online discount visit http://bit.ly/TVCarpenter
or check out their website www.thorndown.co.uk
To learn how to achieve a Safe, practical and beautiful home,
join THE DIY DOERS Facebook group
On this first episode I discuss the new BBC/Netflix show "Interior Design Masters", I chat with super talented Interior designer and editorial stylist Gemma Gear about her time working with me on the same show and how she predicts future trends for the "The Ideal Home Show".
She then gives me the insight into how she styles and create editorial features for "Good homes" and the "ideal Home" Magazines.
Finally I share with you the top tips of how to arrange and hang you art work on the wall.
www.thatsSoGemma.com
www.theDiydoers.com
Wayne Perrey on Instagram and twitter
Thorndown Information:
To receive 15% online discount visit http://bit.ly/TVCarpenter
or check out their website www.thorndown.co.uk
To learn how to achieve a Safe, practical and beautiful home,
join THE DIY DOERS Facebook group
On today's show. I'll be talking about the brand new BBC show, interior design masters. I will then be chatting to the amazing Gemma Gere who is assistant art director on that show, giving her behind the scenes take on working with the contestants and I'll also be giving you some picture hanging top tips.
Speaker 2:[inaudible]
Speaker 1:hello, my name is Wayne Perry and welcome to the TV carpenter, the podcast where I share everything I've learned what's working on all the major home and garden make-over shows. You will hear interviews with interior designers, gardening experts, practical DIY advice, all with the aim of inspiring you and giving you the confidence to create your dream homes.
Speaker 3:Dr[inaudible]
Speaker 1:a huge thank you to my friends that thorn down paint for sponsoring this episode. I first met the guys about three years ago from falling down when they supplied the paint for garden makeover. We were doing on the love your garden show with Alan Titchmarsh. Not only did they supply the paint that came down with paintbrush in hand to to help us out and show us how amazing this pain is. Now I've used this pain in my own garden. What I love about them is that eco credentials, so water-based eco paint, which means the ingredients are as gentle to the environment as possible is nontoxic. So it's great to be around the kids and the animals and also it's really, really easy to use. It's a self priming pain, which means you need to do minimal preparation. I used it on my decking, I watered it down cause it's a water based paint. You can thin it out so you can use it as a stain. But I also used him on some metal sculptures. I, I painted terracotta pots with it. Um, you can use it inside and outside, but also you could paint your upvc windows if you want to do that. The Color Palette is really on trend and they've also got some lovely heritage colors in there as well. And as a way of saying thank you to the t v Carbon, tell listeners have managed to secure as a 15% discount code. So go to thorn down dot code at UK and put in the coupon code WP p. O d t d 19. That's WP for Wayne Perry, p. O d for pod TD for thorn down and 19. Don't forget to go to thorn down at.co. Dot. UK on this week's TV. We finally had the airing of the brand new interior design show on BBC interior design masters. Now, I worked on this show, I think it's nearly a year since we started working on this show. Um, so it's been a long time coming. Everyone's being super excited about coming out. All the contestants, all the trades. Um, I work on the show. I've been, I'm a carpenter on the show and of the eight episodes, the only one I didn't do was the first one. Um, because I was, uh, I would think I was working on an Alan Titchmarsh shows doing a garden makeup show. So I couldn't do the first one. But if I'm being totally honest, I, I'm normally quite pleased that I don't work on the first one because everyone's
Speaker 4:finding their feet. Everyone's trying to work out what everyone's role is. And that's not just the contestants, it's the trades, it's the decorators, the crew, the camera crew, the runners, researchers, everybody's working at all hours. So it's actually quite nice to arrive for the second episode and it's like almost like a well oiled machine by the time you get there. So I watched the show, um, even though often I knew who had gone out, but I watched a show with total fresh eyes, like, uh, all the listeners out there who and viewers who watched it as well. So I was sitting watching it and, um, almost in real time with everybody else. What is really interesting about that first episode, which I think a lot of people don't realize is the contestants. Um, it's the first time they've met everybody. It's the first time they've met all the other contestants and they want to put their stamp. They want to put their, their themes are what their, you know, what their design styles are. So it was interesting. Yes, it was a show home and it's got to appeal to everybody. But you could instantly see what everyone's style is. So someone do, who's known for color and vibrant. If you look on any of her Instagram, you'll see that everything she does is flowery and bright and colorful. You know, that was in her room, Nicki, um, who painted her room black, you know, you know it's a show home. Yes. But actually like she said on the TV show, it's, you know, that's her style. If you look at her, um, uh, Instagram and then they went wild. It's, her rooms are bold and strong and the end product was absolutely beautiful and, and you know, you could see that throughout. And even Jim, bless him, who he left, I never actually met Jim, sadly, cause I don't, like I said, I didn't work on that first episode, but he, you know, he's rooms and, and, and the colors from what you saw from his vts was very much his style. And it's actually quite on trend. Now. If you look at all the big interior design designers that are out there, they're all using those arches and those kinds of colors. Um, yeah, I think I agree that, you know, his, his room was probably the weakest at out of all of them cause he didn't feel like a livable room. It felt like a, like a set, but you could see where he was, he was coming from, he wasn't being bland but they were all trying to make their statements. So we're all trying, it's a competition at the end of the day, no one wanted to play it, play it too safe. So it was really nice to watch, watch the show and really nice to see everyone flexing their muscles. But also what's really interesting when you're doing these kinds of shows is everything takes twice as long. And you imagine in tune when you're on it, you know what we'll normally, you would go, okay, I can paint that room, um, in my house. You can do that in a day. You would go on set, but then all of a sudden there's a camera crew in your face. They're stopping you every five, 10 minutes. They can just come and have a chat with you. Can we talk about this? Or, you know, they're doing upholstery or they're doing that artwork. Can I, I think, was it Terry? And he burst into tears when she was, um, creating some wall art. Um, because all of a sudden your, your under pressure Ev, you've got a camera crew in your face, you've got someone, you know, pointing at you looking how you're doing this, how you're creating the, how you're hanging this, how you're, you know, upholstering when you've never posted before. So what would take you, you know, an hour to do suddenly takes you two hours and then you realize you've been so over adventurous and then you're running at half time and then the pressure's on and everything means so much more. So it's really interesting to see, to see that, especially on the first episode. And as the show progresses, you'll see them be getting more and more relaxed. They are almost the get the camera crew are there and they, they tailor their designs to accommodate that, which, which is really, really interesting. So that's my take on this week's a first episode of, uh, interior design masters. I'm really pleased that for my first episode on my TV Carpenter Podcast, I've managed to speak to Jim McGee at[inaudible] is one of the assistant directors on their TV show. She's there to assist the contestants, help them with their budgets. She's not there to influence in any way, but she is one of the most uh, talented, um, designers that is, that are out there and she's kind of one of the unsung some heroes. And behind the scenes you would never, you know, you, you probably would never recognize her, but she is very influential and the interior design world. And I worked with her on the show last year, but also I've seen seen and worked alongside her at the idol home show and she built some of the amazing room sets that are there and she does a lot of editorial work. So I managed to have a phone conversation with her and we were chatting and she gave me loads of interesting insights into the world of interior design.
Speaker 1:Hey Taylor, congratulations. And thank you. Congratulations. So that you get married. I just want to say congratulations. I only, because I've been looking through your website, um, that, so gemma.com, and I love the name by the way.[inaudible] I was looking through your website and you do everything. And the reason why I want you to showcase you and speak to you on the podcast is because behind the scenes and all of these TV shows, whether it's garden shows or make-over shows, there's always an amazing team behind the scenes who are, who are just phenomenal. And also almost a saw on some here. So obviously the interior design masters, um, is a competition. So you can't really help the contestants, but your job is there to keep them on track and, and produce. So what was your title in the, in the show? In intuit,
Speaker 5:my, I was working as assistant art director, so I was working on the design team, um, underneath the fabulous Kate McPhee, um, Edward Robinson and Syrah who Busha. Um, but yes, we were the design team, so we were there to kind of help the contestants but not to influence our designs but just monitor their, make sure that the, what they were doing was feasible and just basically being a bit of a mentor and a, and a bit of a mummy to them because they do need to happen. It is a lot of them to go through is quite stressful for them. So it's just making sure that they're okay. Making sure that actually their designs are, you know, feasible to actually work past the door enough. Um, but yeah, no it was great to be a part of the team. It was a new thing for me as well. As you say, I kind of, I have done a bit of better than that, but for me to work on the TV shows it was great fun. So yeah, looking forward to seeing it come out.
Speaker 1:No, but like, oh like you in charge of budgets as well and you know, keep it that, that, that must have been tricky.
Speaker 5:We have to do that. We did say, cause I'm, even though we were on the sign team, it sounds very creative by to be home the time we've got delving for your receipt and making spreadsheets and making sure that they don't go over budget on their, um, on their design ideas because it is a competition. So we did have to be really strict with monitoring to make sure that it is fair between them all. So if there was times that never to coming up with design ideas or pounds and we were like, oh well actually you know, are you gonna be able to forward up there? And it did come to the end of the, could be the end of the design, the knower, busy making. We had to keep asking and be like, oh what you can, what you're going to take off so it doesn't come over. And if we did build it mean at times, but it's part of the show isn't it? It's all part of the competition.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. And because it's BBC, everything has to be fair. But I remember there was one moment. It's always the end when they are kind of running out of budget. They don't realize it's all about the last bit of the styling and then they can't afford a cushion. Or I remember on one show I did with Ed, it was one of the starters with you. Um, he, um, they couldn't afford the cutlery for the table, so ed had to go in and remove all the cutlery before the judges came in and it sounded, looks really worried.
Speaker 5:It literally came down to light bulbs on time that nicotine, it really did. There was, we can say throughout the whole show with economic, maybe by the final episode, they'll, they'll let you know, they'll get this sorted and nobody, you know, they won't cause any drama at the end of the ethics. Obviously we hated having to go and hassle them, but no, they didn't.
Speaker 1:I'm looking on your, on your website. Um, I looked at your portfolio and now there's a list of things that you do or so it says your, you do editorial styling, commercial styling, advertorial, still life press shows, exhibition events, visual merchandising. So, oh my God. Like, but that's what you have to be able to do all of these to be a stylist.
Speaker 5:I know. So, so what basically my background is, I was a visual merchandiser for five years. Um, I worked at various home retailing stores, including Laura Ashley and Zara home. Um, and when I, when I, I mean, uh, suburban long story one I did find, find out that interior starting was a thing. It was like a little light bulb went off in my head and I can do, that's what I wanted to do. I have the visual merchandising experience. Um, and I kind of started exploring the freelance mode of interior starting. And I soon learned that I couldn't work full time as a visual merchandiser and do photo shoots. And so I kind of ended up off of three months of testing it. I'm the boss and I went freelance and, and yeah, since then I've just been very much just try everything, do a bit of that, do a bit of that and more because I, I, you know, just that the, I know what I want to do in life. I love the spontaneity of it. I like, you know, I don't like routines. Like for me it works perfectly doing different things each week, different people in a different place. Um, but yeah, like on this little journey that I'm going on, I am kind of just venturing the creative world of freelance and doing various photo-shoots and exhibitions and pressures just to kind of crack down really on what my niche is cause I cause I don't know what that is yet.
Speaker 1:What is what as you say, you don't know what it is. Cause I'm like you kind of fat sack the boss and kind of went freelance like 2015 so we worked together on the interior design masters show. But then last year I designed a garden at the ideal home show and you were doing the good home magazine room sets. Now that is insane. So people, and I've built on a lot of those shows, so if any of you go to any of these ideal home shows or grand design live, they always have installations that are within. So ideal home they'll have a huge house or they'll have room sets or garden sets and the room sets are normally sponsored either like by ideal home or he was in um, it was good homes magazine. And you, how many was it? Six rooms you had to style
Speaker 5:it was so, well it, it's all actual parts, like four Romans that, but they were kind of broken boat by broken down into two sections. So you had um, living room w alongside a hallway, another living room with the gardens that a bedroom with an en suite and a kitchen with a dining room. So it was four rooms. That's, but it was kind of broken into eight really.
Speaker 1:And that's insane. So, and to get that Gig, oh my God, no. How were you when you got that gay? You must have been over the moon.
Speaker 5:I was over the moon. I was, I was in a bit of shock really. So the, so itself was the last week of March and the first week of April, but I got commissioned about it just after, just after the Christmas break. So there was a few months that I knew that I was kind of taking on this big project. And when I found out I was so excited. I honestly, I couldn't believe it. I was in shock really. But, um, yeah, I was, I kind of just took it in my stride. It was quite nerve wracking. Um, but yeah, no exciting.
Speaker 1:It looked, it looked beautiful. And like I say, I've worked with the idle home show for about four or five years in a row doing different things where they're doing DIY talks or like help building and doing over those exact sets that you, you know, and they used to be run by people that came that fee and Sophie Robinson, who was a judge on the interior design challenge, you know, or all amazing. And they're all our friends. We all know them and everyone's really accommodating and happy for everyone to do it. But just get what, like one of the room sets, which really was striking and out for me was the kitchen dining room set. So just describe that one to me.
Speaker 5:So I'll start with that bridge. That was where we kind of really let loose and that was the 50 shades of pink room set. So the very talented Simone Gordon kind of came up with the color concepts for it. And then I was working alongside and just have enough who at the time was the decorating editor of good homes magazine. We kind of creatively came up with this concept of all the different shapes of pink and it's, you kind of have to be careful with pink, you don't want to crush them. So they had to kind of flow and we had couple times and blush pink tags, but we really just wanted to go out there. We had this gorgeous pink kitchen from mosque cross kitchens and then we also had these arched cabinets, like a custom made by doctors goodbyes. So as a real focal point in the kitchen and yeah, the research folks, the feedback was phenomenal. I think everyone kind of looked at it as, wow, that is kind of out there and bold, but in a inspiring way. I think it was kind of, you know, if it's nice to kind of inspire people to use different colors that they potentially be a bit afraid to use. Um, that was even at times, you know, when I went back there, the show, when the phone was open, I could hear men saying, oh, this is really good. Like normally never be say anti paying call, you know, so called the women out there, who would you want to convince the Hump and get pink into the house, you know?
Speaker 1:Yeah, go for it. Because what I find really interesting obviously is working in this world, whether it be gardens or interior design and there's certain things that I see and I go, you know, I first see them, for example, the two lovely gays to LG studios, Jordan Russell, they are quite out there. And what they do, they go up to Milan and they find out what's really on trend. They're like really high trend. And they brought something similar that feel pastorals and the pinks and the cheers and everything curved. They showed all of that about a year, year and a half ago when I was at the, I don't like that. That's horrible. Do you know what I mean? It's, it's not, you know, um, Soho House kind of look and I was like, Nah, not like that cut to a year down the line when we've subliminally been filtered it, you see it a few times, you see the paints, you see all the arches and then you put it in a, you know, it's quite mainstream is the ideal home show even though that you say it was quite edgy for them, but people go away then and it filters into their house. So Do, do you realize that that's what you're doing? Do you realize you're slowly filtering it into main street? Only the kind of editorial as you do? So,
Speaker 5:yeah, it, it is the thought really to think that I'm inspiring people to do that. Um, for me it's just really important that I'm kind of getting my side across that as well. Like good. We have to study the trends, the interior trends that coming up. So, um, this year we'll see like kind of the year was living corals about how we intercepted that into that room set. Um, but it's kind of you want to have these briefs, you get these briefs where you want to be creative but you always want to add your touch and your style and your flag. Tibet whilst appealing, a huge like demographic. Um, you know, you kind of have to think you want to appeal to male and female and the older generation, the younger generation is quite fast. Um, and it is, it's so nice to know that people are seeing your work. And I must say when I went back there to the show, I t I went back there a few times whilst it was open and I just go back and look at the rooms that again and take it all in. Cause obviously, you know, the weeks a bit mad.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that makes sense. You don't really get to kind of see the wood for the tree monster railing,
Speaker 5:how you've got, you've gone away, you've had a couple night sleep, you know, you're going back on fresh mind and it's so nice. And I kind of see people walking around and looking at the room sets and um, some of the going, wow, there's, wow, look at that. And at sometimes I'm going, oh, that's a bit out there. But again, just you kind of enjoy that. Yeah.
Speaker 1:You talked about um, um, the color of the year. What was that about?
Speaker 5:So every year, the time time released that color of the year and it's kind of, um, a lot of trainings follow that. A lot of companies and brands follow that color of the year. And so this year it was living coral, which is like, um, I'm sure everyone knows, but it is just this good quite warming, vibrant, cold color. And so we definitely, we felt like we needed to incorporate that into the room. Sat somewhere and obviously in the kitchen diner, I just, it in perfectly
Speaker 1:[inaudible] amazing. It's interesting how, you know, you s the public has slowly influenced by certain things like we talk about the trends. Where do you, what do you get your inspiration for for trends or what magazines or what things do you look look at to, to see what's coming up
Speaker 5:and so yeah, magazines. I mean it's funny now as I'm kind of a stylist, I do actually do a lot of the, the um, styling myself and magazines. So for me it really is all the design chain. So you know, you've got the shades from Milan, you've got[inaudible], um, where all the brands coming together as they call that trend Bible was, and almost being the future. I think I'm much, I don't, I don't know if I can really disclose this, but I know there is a company as well. They have a trend Bible[inaudible] which, um, it genuinely oversees the upcoming trends for the, the, for the next two years, which is just in failing to think that, that, you know, already forecast it. But that's how, that's how we follow our trends and things inspire us. And even, you know, fashion as well, I know this sounds silly, but fashion can really influence interior transport in terms of color than aesthetic
Speaker 1:styling. Then. So, you know, the fun stuff, which is the styling, what do you think makes a good stylist?
Speaker 5:I think what makes a good stylist is um, really thinking about the composition of what your kind of work of, how you're putting things and thinking about the colors and also the angles. It's very different. Um, working on photo shoots is very different to backing on an exhibition. So if you're starting for, for a photo shoot, you've got to kind of bear in mind where the cameras, you're doing it very much from that, from the angle of that camera. Do you have to about think about the competition and not shot? Um, well if you're working on an exhibition, you're thinking more from all angles. So you're almost imagining as if you are the, the customer, let's say, or the viewer walking around. And it has to kind of look aesthetically correct from all angles. So it's just really kind of composing things in a, in a aesthetically pleasing way that can kind of draw attention and you know, all my[inaudible] as well. Like you kind of want to make people want this, you know, you want to make people as far as have that or inspires people to create this look themselves. So it's just about really making brown, it is making things look lovely. But you've also, yeah, there are elements with the, you think by this needs to be, things needs to be put in a certain way, um, without obviously showing or demonstrating it myself. It's very hard space. There's the rule of three as well. Like in phase three you very busy on the ice, right?
Speaker 1:Rudy's three rule of three. So trend wise, what have you seen coming up that's exciting you, that you're, you're excited to tell people?
Speaker 5:So trends wise, I know for a fact that there's, um, the botanical ones aren't going away anytime, say in botanical theme staying Pert. Um, I know that there's a lot of Celeste, you're blue coming up as well. Um, so I think that will be coming up a lot over Christmas down. I say that word yet.
Speaker 1:So let's still blue. So what, how would you describe Celeste you believe then? I've never heard it.
Speaker 5:And that's kind of little kind of your patch, all blues, your tails, your, it's kind of a mixture of the blues, but it's also kind of um, a bit night story. Skies that are going to be a big Christmas trend this year. Um, I know as well the lovely play your potty times. Yeah.[inaudible] um, coming back I knew that they were around a lot last year as well. Three more days, but more of a mushroom kind of time to it.[inaudible] yes. And I think, I think geometrics are going to be going away for a little while, but don't hold me to that.
Speaker 1:Okay. Now come back. Someone will do a big fashion thing with geometrics. You've let down.
Speaker 5:I'm just going to be staring care from geometrics at the moment.
Speaker 1:Wow. Well we, we heard it here first. Um, so if you, uh, to, I want to find out where your happy places. So I want you to describe one, what you're drinking and the room set that you're in, which really makes you happy. Yeah. For you, you're designing for, you know.
Speaker 5:Okay. Well if the stars is I'm drinking, I'm drinking. I cannot sit up straight. Like I'm taking a rhubarb gin with Ginger Ale.
Speaker 1:Oh, nice. Lots of flavor. Okay. Okay.
Speaker 5:Definitely. Um, and I, I'm in a room that is clean white walls and then loads of monochrome, like gray, rustic, organic materials, grays, whites, blacks and agreeing botanicals everywhere. So there's lots of green linens and there's organic wood stores and uh, furniture. Um, I'm laying down on a lovely Chazen which is that posted in green bow at, um, I'm looking out onto the sea front
Speaker 1:sob. So it was interesting to say, so your linens aren't crisp, they're kind of that kind of w everyone's doing that. Oh No. And kind of, yeah,
Speaker 5:they are ruffled and rustic and there's lots of lovely all kinds of materials lying around.
Speaker 1:Okay. So you might be assigned to a questionnaire cause I had one then and I remember someone telling me, and I can't remember the onset, if you were to buy Bennet bed linen, so I know you can buy really expensive, you know, white company stuff, but it's a nightmare to iron. What, what? What is the best mix for bed linen? Do you know that? Do you know what?
Speaker 5:Oh really? Because so many people stay different.
Speaker 1:That's what I'm saying. This is what I don't know. Is it thread count? Is it? It's not a hundred percent cotton, is it? Do you want a high thread count or is it something to do with the weave I want out. You might not know the answer, but I just got your mind.
Speaker 5:I think when it comes to cartoons, yeah, for higher thread count is better. However, you know some people, some people do prefer linen bed linen, but then obviously it's too rough for them. Yeah. And then some people like fat in that linen, but they may say that it's too slippery.
Speaker 2:[inaudible] edit that. No, that's good here. You just liberating. But it's true. I didn't want to sleep in Saturday. You do know that this has stayed with the podcast, but it's true. But that's okay.
Speaker 1:It's a preference, but it's just interesting how to sit and people have a certain opinion about what is the best bed bed litter to have and it's, it just makes me laugh. Um, and no one had, no one has a definitive, I'm going to have to fire. I ask everybody and no one's got definitive. You're no different from anybody else.
Speaker 5:When I say that I beat it's face face to Skill K. Oh,
Speaker 1:okay. Okay. It's too silky. They say, apparently that's they say Jack. Joey's get it. Absolutely. Joey, speaking to your Dalen. So where can people, um, if people want to find you on socials, where's the best place for them to find you?
Speaker 5:The best place to find me on social media is on Instagram and my handle is at slow Gemma. Um, I, I am also on Facebook, which is that sue Gemma as well. Um, and you can, yeah, find me on my website and my blog at[inaudible] dot com
Speaker 1:amazing. Jim, it's been an absolute joy speaking to you and I'm sure we were passing each other again at the ideal home show. And if you ever need anyone to build anything for you, let me know.
Speaker 5:No, I know I about away
Speaker 1:Mozilla Italian speak soon.
Speaker 4:Hopefully if you listen to this it's because you love yourself a little bit of DIY or you want to 20, prove your room with a little bit more knowledge from some professionals, you know, some interior designers or garden designers or from myself with DIY tips. Um, I love teaching DIY. Um, and it stems, I think mainly my dad's a builder I've learned from him and I love passing on that knowledge and I've realized there is no silly questions. You know, people are scared of DIY. He's kind of got a bad reputation in the past. Well, I love teaching it and I love empowering people to learn how to do it. So much so that I started a company with, uh, my good friend Stephanie Brown. And about four, five years ago, we set up, um, a company, she's a trained plumber and a property developer. And I'm a carpenter and general builder and people would ask us kids, people at the school gates, not kids, but their parents would ask us at school gates or friends and family would say, how do you do this? So we set up this company called the d o I do is where we have a free um, resorts, a Facebook group, um, a bit like a mum's net for DIY. And the response to it has been amazing, is grown from strength trends. So much so that we, we together have appeared on various TV shows and we write regular for the Sunday Times home magazine. But I think what's made us different from all the other people who teach to go white is our positive outlook. There is no negatives to it. You know, we, we want people to be empowered. We want people to pick up the tools and have a go. So we, uh, recently, uh, were presenting at the idle home show. Actually we've done it for the last three years. We present on their main stage and we do various talks. And one of the main talks we do is picture hanging, not the actual physical act of hanging the pictures in the wall, but actually the rules for arranging pictures on the wall. So many people are scared of getting it wrong and you know, they, they see these amazing magazines or these amazing interior designs or um, restaurants or galleries where everything looks amazing on the wall and they want to try and replicate that on in their house. So I'm going to give you the top tips on how to do that. What are the rules to do that? So that actually once you know the rules, then you can do whatever you like and break the rules. But at least you're, you're doing them with an informed decision. So these are the top tips on how to arrange pictures on your wall.
Speaker 2:[inaudible] picture hanging.
Speaker 4:It's all really about the subconscious mind. Yes, there's rules, but it's what feels right, what looks right, um, in your head. And, and, and, and it's interesting because it's just changes a slight differences that will make the difference between something really singing and celebrating the art. And not. So one of the first rules is, um, if you're going to put a picture on while you've got a blank canvas is a blank wall, and then you want to put one beautiful picture, it's normally quite a big picture and you want to hang that on the wall. What is the correct height? Well, what they say is that big picture is known as your hero picture. It's usually the biggest one. And if it's only one picture that is going to go on a wall, it's that one piece of art. And the, uh, they say to hang it five feet off the ground. Now what that means is the middle of that picture. So that huge picture you've got, find the middle of it and hang that five feet off the ground. And the reason why they say them is they've worked out that the average person's height, uh, eye level, um, in the UK is five feet. So, um, that works, you know, as an average. So if you go into a big gallery, you'll see these beautiful big spaces. They'll have huge walls, big white walls, and beautifully lit. And then all the artwork will seem relatively low. We'll all be at a low level, but what they all will be will all the middle of them will generally be at five feet. Now we're going to break that rule. Um, if the room that you're going to put the artwork in is a dining room or a lounge, say, then you want to go a little bit lower because a dining room, you're sitting at a dining table in your lounge, you tend to be seated quite a lot in your lounge. So you can lower those pictures by a couple of inches just so the idea is you don't want your neck cracked up. So if you make the hero picture in the center of it at five feet, that generally works our of, if it's a seated room, lower them down a little bit. Now, if you have loads of artwork in your lounge, for example, and all different sizes, if you put this a, an imaginary line all around the room and at five feet off the ground and you hang all the art, um, the center of those pictures all at five feet, what happens is the eye, the human eye naturally finds a balance in naturally find some, some kind of connection and some harmony. So all the artwork, whatever shape and size that it all seems to work because the IRS found a pattern. So that's a really good tip as well. But what's interesting is the eye is always constantly trying to find patterns. It likes to fill in gaps. It likes to have something to tell, latch on to. So whenever you're creating art work, if you can try and find some as many patterns as possible, as many as things in common with the artwork that will help the eye to enjoy him. When you're hanging artwork above, um, a sofa or even, um, a bed or a console table, a lot of people make the mistake of they'll put the art too high. So they'll have a sofa and it's back. And then you'll have this piece of artwork which will be really high. And then you'll have a space of wall below the art and above the back of the Sofa. And what happens is the eye, when you're looking at the whole wall with the Sofa and the artwork and the eyes drawn to the space that's between the two. So your eyes drawn to that dead space and actually you want the eye to be drawn to the art, not the dead space in between. And this is the same, like I say, if you put in a picture of a bed and the rule of thumb is that you put our, the rule of hand I say is you put your palm spread out. So get your Thurman, your little finger as wide as they can. Put that on the wall and you put, you put that span hand span above the, uh, the headboard or above the back of the Sofa and where that's the, the maximum distance you should allow before the artwork. So if, you know, if your thumbs touching the top of the, the headboard, your little finger should just be touching the bottom of your artwork. And what that does, it makes the artwork connected with a piece of furniture below. So like, again, like I said, you're not looking at the space in between. You're looking at the whole wall as a whole. Um, and interestingly, I've, I remember doing some, uh, some, uh, some set dressing, um, with a wonderful interior designer, Sophie Robinson, who was a judge on the grey interior design challenge. And I did this rule rule of hand and I put this artwork and we did it. I put it above a console table. So I had it quite low and connected. And interestingly, she came along and said, actually that doesn't work, this rule with this, because she was going to have this really tall vase with a huge like orchid flower coming out of it. Um, and it just crashed the, the pitcher. It kind of overtook the picture of this flower. So the rule was then we had to raise the art workup so that the, the, um, it are flowers in interrupting them in front of the artwork because the, the flowers were actually filling in that void. The Flower and the Vars were filling, filling in that dead space underneath. So again, it shows that you can break the rules just as much as I've told you them, but if you've got a plain wall where you've not gotten too, too many distractions and you've just got the sofa and the headboard palms with, um, between your artwork and it'll help, um, join the artwork to the, to the, uh, the sofa and to the whole setting. A lot of the time we talk about the art and it's all to do with the frames. So like I said before, your eyes always trying to find patterns. Um, and a good way if you're creating a gallery wall is to find a pattern like have all the frames very similar. So you know it was quite trendy at one point to have all the frames, um, black and then all the artwork. If all the artwork was black and white for example, um, then your eyes naturally found a connection with two things. There is the, the prints in side are black and white and the frames are are black for example. Then when you come to do the layout, you kind of find something for the item that challenges, it could be like we say all at the same height of five feet or you can do something like horizon line where all the artwork, you can have an imagine really imaginary, can't say the word and imaginary line through the middle and space through the middle, which everything hangs off either side of, you've got to create some kind of pattern for your id to find. There's also something called outside edge where if you imagine you've got so many different kinds of artwork. If you, if you create a square board on the outside using all your art, so the space inside between the artwork does it matter, but as long as the outside edges are all imperfect, blind, potentially a square or rectangle or something, your eyes naturally group them together as a collective. So that really helps when you're creating like a gallery wall effect. When you're doing a gallery wall, it's always interesting and important to start with your hero picture. And like we said before, your hero picture is normally the largest picture. If you start with that in the middle, um, at five feet, like we said before, and then work your way outwards. But what you should do is work your way outwards with the largest pictures being in the middle, going to smaller pictures on the outside. That helps create some balance because again, if you waited everything, so all your larger pictures were on one side and your smaller pictures are on the other, you know, the walls not gonna fall down rationally, but subconsciously your brain is naturally going, something's not right. It doesn't feel safe. You know, it's not very functional. We looked like it's gonna collapse. So, um, to get a better balance for your eyes worth putting your larger pictures in the middle and working smaller as you go. Go on the outside. Also, I'm doing gallery wall, like I said before, creating that frame effects with, with the frames, the outside edge frames. I've done it before where we did a make-over on this morning and we were making over the gallery like a, we did it in two hours and the interior designer again was so brilliant. Sophie Robinson and she did this brilliant thing where we masked off a whole wall and painted a square with a in this wall. So I think it was, she had like, uh, a bright color on the outside and then a different richer color, um, on the inside. And we created this big rich square and then we put the artwork inside of that and they'll have frames were all mixed and the collecting mix, but she got away with it by the frame has been on mixed because she put a block color, she did some color blocking on the wall, which created one big frame for all these other frames to be inside. Again, it's all about the I trying to find a pattern to tell the latch onto. So hopefully I've given you some top tips there about to hang walls and gallery walls and feel of walls. And the main thing is, is remember, do what you like in your home. If you, you know, whatever you feel works for you. But if you try and give your eye as many patterns to latch on to, whether it be the color of the frames, whether it be, you know, the way you arrange them on the outside edge, whether it be the art itself or even, you know, sometimes the art will dictate how you lay out your, your artwork. If you've got the pictures of um, seascapes over the horizon and they're all different sizes, the best bet is to have it so the horizon is always in the same line rather than all higgledy piggledy because they are, he's telling you what to do. But ultimately the main thing is you on your art to sing. If you aren't sings, you naturally enjoy it. So I hope you've how you can go away now and work out where you're going to hang those pieces.
Speaker 2:[inaudible]
Speaker 4:there we are. My first episode of the TV carpenter. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you liked the insight into making the interior design masters and the chat with Jim McGeer who, uh, I think you'll agree has an amazing insight into the world of interior design and interior editorials. And I hope you liked my top tips with picture hanging. You will now find yourself a compulsive picture straight. Now I know that's the curse that I've bestowed onto all of you. I hope you enjoyed the show and don't forget to like and subscribe because we all know it helps other people find the podcast. And if you have any DIY related questions or any interior design or makeover show questions, contact me, Wayne Perry on Instagram and Wayne Perry on Twitter, and hopefully I can answer them in future episodes. And a huge thank you to my sponsors thorn down paint. Don't forget to go to thorn down dot code at UK, and if you want 15% discount off any online purchases, don't forget to put in the coupon code WP p o d t d 19 I look forward to speaking to you next week.
Speaker 2:[inaudible].