Contemplations On Furniture

on a shifting sense of interior style

Not a single bubble-cube candle in sight…although I wouldn’t mind one.

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I was today years old when I learnt that the recent interior trend–think blocky, tiled coffee tables and wavy-framed mirrors in predominantly pastel tones–has been assigned a name. Coined by the combined insights of writers Emma Hope Allwood and Otegha K. Uwagba, you’ve undoubtedly witnessed, if not participated in, the rise of ‘avant basic’ interiors over the last few years. I’m always up for picking apart a trend, but even I have to admit there’s an appeal to the smooth lines and kaleidoscopic patterns this particular one has spawned.

There’s obviously nothing wrong with being into this style for your home. It does, however, seem to be the face of a sinister rise in cheap, throwaway furniture – ‘fast homeware’, this article calls it. As someone who has been known to become emotionally attached to sofas, ‘throwaway’ and ‘furniture’ seem completely at odds. It’s bad enough that we cycle through fashion trend after fashion trend, literally binning clothes once they’re no longer considered cool as arbitrarily dictated by brands, designers and influencers. But are people really treating their furniture, items that form the essence of a home, the same way?

I can’t help but wonder if a home furnished according to the latest trends has as much power to hold memories (good and bad) in its scuffed surfaces, in its hand-me-down linens and cat-scratched chairs. Maybe I’m ascribing too great a responsibility onto inanimate objects whose primary purpose is functional rather than aesthetic or sentimental. But maybe it goes without saying that furniture intended to outlast fleeting trends will mean more to its owner, ticking functional, aesthetic and sentimental boxes for years to come.

Amidst the chaos of executing an international move in March 2020 (I’ll stop talking about it at some point…probably), we had several pieces of furniture to deal with. Most of them were IKEA staples that had followed us from one rented flat to another and would just take up too much space in the moving van. In the days leading up to lockdown, the British Heart Foundation suspended their free collection of usable furniture donations, so we ended up having to pay a man with a van to take everything to the dump for us (I can only hope they re-used or sold some of it instead). It was kind of heartbreaking, to be honest, but we had more important things to worry about.

It was, in a way, good to start creating our new home with a blank slate. For the first time in my adult life (although painting my teenage bedroom orange probably counts), I had the chance to consider what kind of decor I might want for my home. Growing up in a council flat gave me a taste of control over my own space that was subsequently crushed by years of private renting, so I was more than ready to let loose. We decided to go for a mid-century, retro style to honour the period the house was built in. We haven’t held back on colour and patterns, and I may never tire of trawling the loppisar every summer for second-hand bargains. 

But sometimes, if I’ve been spending too much time scrolling Instagram and Pinterest, I find myself wondering if a completely different interior style would be better. I feel the pull of popular styles with muted colours and old-fashioned furnishings, farmhouse kitchens and copies of Kinfolk neatly displayed on the table. I consider myself to be a self-assured person but in recent years even I have found myself aspiring to a different sense of style, buying clothes based on what others look good in. Maybe it’s a side-effect of the ongoing pandemic, an opening of space and consciousness within which you might reinvent yourself and your home. Of course, this is all fantasy: even if I was serious about swapping our colourful 60s vibe for, say, the 20th century country-house style that is a pretty big deal here, I wouldn’t have the money to make it happen. Furniture, even bought second-hand or mass-produced, is very expensive (this profile on a charity helping to kit out the homes of vulnerable women served as a stark reminder).

None of this reasoning stops me, though, from sometimes wanting what I don’t have. Logging onto Twitter, I discover that the forest-green countertops of Dakota Johnson’s kitchen have been replaced as the internet’s favourite home by the ‘earthy-with-a-twist ambience’ of 21-year-old influencer/entrepreneur Emma Chamberlain’s L.A. residence. Would I be happier if I lived in a vast house with cedar-beamed ceilings and plush designer furniture, paid for by years of online presence? Why am I aspiring to the lives and spaces of famous white women? These are ugly feelings to have, and I don’t want to be mistaken: I love my home and am grateful for the stability and security it provides. I suppose what I sometimes deal with is a sense of creative indecisiveness, my Libra rising jumping out. Have I committed to particular choices and aesthetics too quickly, without sampling every interior direction that exists? It’s how I sometimes feel about writing: what if my skills are better spent penning the twisty thrillers I so enjoy reading, rather than short stories? Can I be both? Can I be everything?

In this algorithmic world of trends and ideals we’re all trapped in, it’s easy to find yourself thinking there are set ways of dressing or decorating your home, of creating and even existing. There’s nothing wrong with being influenced by trends, but their problematic nature with regard to the environment, workers’ rights, the upholding of toxic standards and industries, and homogenous spoon feeding via suggested content and ads (I could go on) is something I think we should all be wary of. Besides, isn’t it more fun to get to know yourself, to figure out how you genuinely like to dress, or decorate your home, free of excessive external dictation? It’s OK to be basic, or even avant basic, but finding out what really means something to you–which styles will make your home come alive and hold onto your memories for as long as you live there and beyond? That there’s the sweet spot, I think.

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The Bookshelf

In this section of Home Comforts, I share a reading recommendation for a book or piece of writing that touches on themes of home.

Intimacies by Lucy Caldwell

An anecdote for you: I bought this slim book of stories on my recent trip to what I call my ‘home-home’, London. Waiting for a friend outside Foyles in Southbank, I dipped into the opening story, when a stranger walked past and pointedly told me, ‘there are better books inside’ before heading into the Royal Festival Hall. I was so startled I followed her into the building and asked what she meant, but she told me I must be mistaken and denied ever having opened her mouth.

There may well be better books inside, but I enjoyed the way Caldwell’s characters move through life’s big challenges–motherhood, health scares, the shaking of long-held beliefs–as they find themselves away from the places and people in which they feel most at home.

Do you have a recommendation I might like? If so, I’d love to hear from you!

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My short story collection, Tools For Surviving A Storm, is out now.

‘In a transporting, original collection, Nadia Henderson examines the lines between nature and the human world through stories set in landscapes both brutal and beautiful.’