Laura Jackson talks to Pandora Sykes about decorating a first home
Here’s a story that an awful lot of people will recognise. You buy a house bigger than the place you lived before. It is the house you intend to occupy for the foreseeable future. The one where perhaps you’ll raise a family, plant a tree in the garden, become friends with your neighbours. You’ve found a rare gem that has escaped the clutches of unsympathetic property developers, and belonged to people who, yes, may have had slightly questionable taste, but at least loved it enough not to let it completely fall to bits. So you don’t have to do everything to it...just most things.
There is a period of time for most people who have undertaken ‘a project’, where life will have to be lived in the middle of the morass; where there will often be strangers in your house destroying things, and everything you own will be covered by a thin layer of dust. Sometimes this period can last for years. Yet we so rarely discuss this in-between stage, where the true cost (in every sense of the word), of creating the home that you want suddenly becomes apparent. Enter Instagram, and the entirely gripping phenomena of the real-time renovation.
When the TV presenter Laura Jackson, and her photographer husband Jon Gorrigan bought their home in east London four years ago they knew that its decoration would be a slow process. Not only because they had moved from a loft apartment to a double-fronted Victorian house, and had to start almost totally from scratch with the furniture; but also because they had decided to work from the top of the property down - carrying out major work on the attic and upstairs bathrooms and bedrooms, before tackling the ground floor. This meant a deliberate plan to live for a few years with much of what the previous owner had left behind. Which in this particular case was floral wallpaper. Acres of it.
‘She had been here for most of her life,’ says Laura. ‘I was kind of drawn to how mad it was. There was something fun about living with all this pattern that I would never have chosen for myself.’
Filling the space with an eclectic high-low mix of vintage and contemporary pieces, she was learning her taste as she went, and documenting it on Instagram. Jackson's 95,000 followers have been by her side through the entire journey–take a look at the hashtag #fgprojecthouse to get an overview. She frequently crowdsources advice on everything from paint colour to grout, and in turn is generous with sharing lessons she's learnt the hard way; from the cowboy builder who left her with a half converted loft, to the delightful chapter where her bath had to be craned in through an upstairs window (still available to watch on her story highlights for those that are interested). What joy to finally see the finished room, after being glued to its genesis for months.
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Hers is one of a number of renovations we have been following over the last couple of years: houses belonging to people who don't necessarily work in design, but whose taste we are interested in. A kind of slow-drip, interactive hybrid of reality TV, where the audience is totally invested, and can participate (to an extent) in the outcome.
Influencers like Jackson are not only helping to demystify the process of decorating and renovating a house without the help of an interior designer, but are also doing much to spread a love of the process of beautifying your home.
Writer and co-host of the weekly culture podcast The High Low Pandora Sykes - whose home features in the September issue of the magazine spoke with Laura about the process of decorating from scratch and learning your taste.
Follow Laura on Instagram at @iamlaurajackson
MAY WE SUGGEST: Journalist Pandora Sykes' London home
Owen Gale1/15Pandora: You moved into a William Morris smothered idyll, which hadn’t changed for almost half a century. How did you decide what to do?
**Laura:**My aim is for the interiors to be classic but with elements we can adapt over time because I’m so fickle. I didn’t want to do a full ‘look’ because what happens when I get bored? We’re keeping the Sanderson wallpaper in the living room. Even though it’s seriously cigarette stained, it’s so pretty. Unfortunately the brown William Morris in the hallways needs too much repair, and makes the house feel a bit moody. So we’ll replace that eventually.
Owen Gale2/15Pandora: Who or what has inspired the way you decorate?
Laura: Travel, particularly New York. The tiles in my bathroom were inspired by the tiles in a restaurant there called Estela. I made the flower patterns on the floor myself, with black and white hexagonal tiles. It was a pain in the arse. I love interiors like Mimi Thorisson’s home in France - when things feel a bit higgledy piggledy. I also like the work of interior designers like Beata Heuman, Sophie Ashby, Fran Hickman and Rose Uniacke. I cherry pick ideas from them all.
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Owen Gale4/15Pandora: You’re a serious bargain hunter aren’t you?
Laura: I’m such a haggler. I love eBay. The gold striped chairs in the living room were from £150 for the pair, and the green and white Howard-style armchairs in the green room were only £100 for the pair. They came in this ridiculous spotty mustard fabric with red trim, so I got them re-covered in a green and white fabric from Fermoie. I also love Kempton and Ardingly. I’ve realised you have to visit antiques fairs a few times to get to know the stall holders. Don’t just expect to get lucky first time.
5/15Pandora: Do you find Instagram helpful when you’re decorating?
Laura: Instagram is a really nice community of people sharing knowledge. I’m such a sharer. That said, there’s so much imagery of interiors out there now, it can be overwhelming trying to hone your personal taste, and stay true to it. It’s not that I care what anyone else thinks, but I want to live in my house for a very, very long time.
6/15Pandora: I found that the finishing touches were so important when I was decorating my house.
Laura: I can’t believe how obsessed I’ve become with the details, like light switches, plug sockets and door knobs. I’m also obsessed with rugs. The rug in the green room was sourced for me from Morocco, by Edit.58. The colours really pull the space together. But the best thing in our house is the books in the green room. We asked everyone who came to our wedding to give us their favourite book and to write a note in there. They’re so special.
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Owen Gale8/15Pandora: How have you balanced the old and new?
**Laura:**I’ve found it really hard. The house is very ‘lived in’, which adds to its charm, but in some of the rooms brand new furniture looks out of place. I think it’s really important to layer your home. I would never go to one shop and buy everything at once. We’ll spend years collecting things to fill this place. I love when someone asks where something is from and there is a story.
Owen Gale9/15Pandora: You had a bad experience with a cowboy builder didn’t you?
Laura: A total cowboy. Half way through the build, when we didn’t have a roof, he left, after we’d paid him in full. It was a major learning curve: never pay anyone upfront, always get three quotes, always get an itemised bill and a timeline and go and see their previous work.
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Owen Gale14/15Pandora: Have you made any mistakes during the renovation?
Laura: We painted the spare room a bright, punchy pink and it felt like you were suffocating. It’s now a much lighter, more relaxing pastel shade (painted since these pictures were taken). On a large scale, god yes. Finding the right people to do the right job, is the hardest thing, especially when you don’t really know what you’re doing.
Owen Gale15/15Pandora: Where do you spend and where do you save?
Laura: We tried to save by buying a vintage bath and sink, but then I had to get the bath craned in through the window. I shared it on Instagram, and someone came up to me at a party and said, ‘I know you know don’t know me, but I’ve been following the bath. I’m really happy that’s it in.’ We spent on a shower. We had one built one from scratch using Moroccan tadelakt plaster.
Pandora: Have you found it hard to keep to a budget and timeline? Our decorators finished a week before my baby was born, which was a squeeze, in every sense of the word.
Laura: We can’t do all the work at once, so we haven’t even thought about the budget. Spreadsheets fill me with dread. We lived in the house for eighteen months before we started the renovation. We wanted to work out which room gets the best light in the morning, and which parts of the house we like spending time. I felt like I wanted to understand every nook and cranny before I decided what to do with it.
