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Your support makes all the difference.The outdoors is big indoors this season, but it should be a permanent trend: my most calming room is the one painted with a hint of green – a big painting of a palm and trees. Beyond pot plants, what else can add to this feel-good style?
Smoke and mirrors
Maximise views of trees, gardens or even window boxes by positioning a mirror opposite (or at right angles to) windows.
If you weave me now
Natural textures and colours are the ticket – but don't go beige-ly boring: a swishy flat near me has a wall adorned with shallow rattan baskets. Try the bread baskets from marocgourmet.com.
Have you twigged?
The man with the baskets also made a "chandelier" of a shapely branch – it looked ace suspended over the dining-table by fishing wire hung over small hooks in the ceiling.
Fake me up before you go-go
Mmm, calming stone or wood walls and floors... Cheat with decowall.co.uk's self-adhesive "wood and bricks" wallpapers.
Off the wall
Grow your own indoor living wall with fillable Wally Woolly Pockets, £29.99 each from Amazon.
Love is like a butterfly
Perfect for the squeamish: a collection of pretty papillons – made from MDF. From £23, utilitydesign.co.uk.
Touch wood
I'd love the downstairs loo done in National Geographic's birch-forest photomural wallpaper (above, grahamsandersoninteriors.com – look for "Sunday" under the Komar brand)
Uncommon scents
Paine's Balsam Fir or Cedar incense cones promise "log-cabin" vibes (labourandwait.co.uk)
Further reading
For more ideas, check out the Flickr group "Interiors Inspired by Nature".
Find Kate's blog on affordable interiors at yourhomeislovely.com
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