Decorating your apartment is a real skill. In your opinion, what are the first reflexes to have before embarking on such an undertaking?
Decorating an apartment is good, but if it is poorly structured or poorly arranged, it will remain useless, because the result will never satisfy you. As an interior designer, I always recommend solving circulation and layout problems before taking care of the color, materials, decoration. Also, I recommend working from a plan even if you know your interior by heart, just to take a step back and have a different vision of the volumes when they are in black and white, in line. We may thus realize that a dining room space is far too large compared to the space granted to the living room, that the sofa is in front of a window or that the entrance lacks storage. Yes, we had already been able to achieve these things living there on a daily basis, but then everything will seem much clearer and more obvious.
Also, when you have rearranged your furniture and you are sure of their location, you can move on to the second step:the decoration. Highlighting a sofa means, for example, giving it a nice colored wall or wallpaper on the back. Assuming the location of the dining room table means, for example, lowering a pretty pendant lamp right above it because we are sure that we won't move it anymore.
What are your tips for making an apartment warm and friendly?
For the apartment to be warm and friendly, I put everything on the materials which, for me, are essential!
I love wood of any kind because it has the ability to warm up an atmosphere (a solid oak or even pine parquet floor, a teak coffee table or even a recycled pallet table, a few tree branches placed against a wall... Decorating is not cheap!). But also boiled wool, wool or cotton rugs that bring comfort to a living room, velvet or coarse cotton cushions that bring elegant touches , plaids or quilts in cotton gauze, for example, which bring good humor and lightness to the decor.
In any case, we avoid the total look and we prefer interiors that tell a story, the personality of the inhabitants. So don't hesitate to mix contemporary furniture, vintage pieces or family furniture. Finally, use lacquered furniture and glass sparingly (if at all in my opinion) if you want a warm and cozy decoration.
Would you advise individuals to call on professionals in the sector to renovate or refurbish an apartment? If so, how to ensure that the result reflects the personality and tastes of the occupants?
If you don't feel capable of it, if you don't have the time or finally if you don't want to miss it, of course, I always recommend calling on an architectural professional interior to help you optimize a volume and get the most out of it. A professional will be able to advise you on the layouts, surprise you in a volume cutout, but above all recommend the best materials, the most suited to your needs, where you live and your budget.
Choosing a professional in interior design and decoration is above all a matter of feeling. You have to look at what he offers, his universe and the variety of his projects to be sure that the person knows how to renew himself and above all adapt to your desires!
You can also turn to a decorator who has a strong paste, a style of his own, but in this case the result will not reflect your personality, but his; it's a choice. It's a bit like buying a well-known DESIGNER piece of furniture:we're sure we're right, but does it reveal your personality?
What are the decorative missteps to avoid?
For me, missteps in decoration do not really exist since everything is a question of subjectivity:as we often say “tastes and colors…”.
On the other hand, it is true that we can appreciate an interior that does not look like us when it is well arranged, bright and made with love! I think that's the real key to the problem:doing things with pleasure and not necessarily trying to copy.
Avoid succumbing to too ephemeral fashions or too bright colors if you do not really have a strong personality in life, because it can quickly get garish! Finally, avoid one style per room, but rather prefer a common thread in the decoration from room to room so that your interior remains restful and pleasant to live in on a daily basis.
What are the 2018 decoration trends not to be missed?
What's great about decorating is that there are plenty of styles and trends in the air and everyone can find something for themselves without having an interior that looks like their neighbour's.
In any case, generally speaking, color is increasingly affirmed in an increasingly elegant way:it is no longer garish, it is no longer shiny or satiny, the color becomes muted and deep, always a little dirty and full of nuances.
So we always like velvet, very powdery and velvety paints, raw wood aged by time, just varnished metal, steel, wool, linen...
We are more and more asserting a maximalist style and no longer minimalist as was the fashion a few years ago in the sense that we work on shades and color palettes with cushions, plaids, bed linen that come in accumulation in front a wall with a tapestry and a painting to create a rather deep elegant universe, but never ostentatious.
After the fir green, emerald green and deep turquoise blue of this winter, we soften the hues with celadon greens and cooler peacock blues.
Ethnic materials such as rattan, rope, string, jute always have a lot of room in the decoration once again to never fall into bling-bling but always keep a part of naturalness!
Sophie Ferjani launches her decoration concept store “Sophie FERJANI – La Sélection” at 45 rue de la République in Marseille. 270m² made up of a sharp selection of decorative objects and small pieces of furniture for all budgets and at the heart of the trend, a selection of DIY products, a choice of materials and 2 interior designers trained by our expert to advise the customers on site or remotely.
Find all the information on the website www.la-selection.fr
