It’s the little things: how to add thoughtful details to your home

Every January, I revel in comforting conversations with friends and family about new year’s resolutions. These light little exchanges can also be gloriously intimate, and I love the precious insight you get into the rich inner life of someone you care deeply for. There’s something about sharing a resolution that makes it real, that gives the resolver some accountability. From personal growth to professional goal-setting, resolutions can be unassuming and easily achievable (for example, one of mine is to prepare better porridge toppings to make weekday breakfasts feel a little more luxurious) or sky-scraping in their aspirations. When it comes to resolutions that concern your home, there are several notches on the spectrum of achievability you might like to choose from. Perhaps you plan to get started on a kitchen renovation or plant a veggie garden. Or maybe, it’s as simple as repairing a cushion cover or rejigging the art around your home for a refreshed look.

For me, 2023 will be about incorporating thoughtful details around the home. I’ll be bringing in seasonal foliage from the garden and plonking it into ceramic vases to bring freshness and greenery to my desk or even the bathroom, sewing a trim onto my pillowcases (a project I’ve been postponing for months) and using some of the candles given to me as gifts instead of saving them for best.

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According to interiors experts, you can dress your home with thoughtful details using all sorts of methods. Annie Sloan, the British artist and owner of her eponymous chalk paint company, is an advocate for using paint in new ways to add originality and character to any home, such as with trompe l’oeil. “If you’re an advanced painter, use trompe l’oeil to introduce structural interest to plain walls,” says Sloan. Her Greco-Roman-inspired pediment is a great example. You can channel any theme, place or style to give a thoughtful and personal touch to a door or window frame, and it’ll be sure to make you smile every time you pass by it. If you’re not such a dab hand with the paintbrush, “a simple painted silhouette looks just as impactful”. Painted pediments are particularly effective in properties that have had their original period features removed, but Sloan says, “this idea would also look brilliantly bonkers in new builds, which I’m all for!”

If painting really isn’t your thing, Studio Atkinson, an interior design studio and homeware shop, has recently launched a small collection of wallpaper borders that you can use to a similar effect.

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Alice Bailey, head of the Islamic and Indian Arts department at auction house Roseberys London, believes that antique trinkets and objets make for perfectly personal additions to the contemporary home. “In particular,” says Bailey, “I’m thinking of 19th-century ceramics and objects that have single functions, such as a Victorian Wedgewood roast serving dish I bought recently, which has a little well for the juices to run off. Items like pickle forks, nutcracker sets and grape scissors provide the perfect foil to the modern, multifunctional approach to design.” Introducing these items into modern life lends a slower pace and a sense of thoughtfulness to domestic life.

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Family Linens, a new collaborative collection from Cressida Jamieson and East London Cloth, is another design launch that leans into the personalisation and uniqueness you can achieve in the home. The collection comprises hand-embroidered tablecloths, café curtains, pillowcases and napkins inspired by the 19th-century tradition of a marriage trousseau. Linens for the trousseau would be gathered over time and embroidered to reflect memorable people or occasions, a pastime echoed in the collection’s neatly scribed names, symbols and dates to order.