For a family home, your style is surprisingly masculine. Perhaps it's to do with the gadgets you own, though more likely about the choices you make when it comes to colour and functionality of design. Perhaps, however, your hectic lifestyle will add a softer edge to an otherwise quite orderly and disciplined aesthetic.
Playboy, gent, aesthete - your living room is a shrine to bachelorism. The masculine look finds its apogee in the bachelor pad, and at the heart of every bachelor pad is the living space, with its sharp lines and a hedonistic approach to life that's all about having fun and very little to do with mundane chores. This is the lifestyle of a Gatsby or a 007, and the fact that both are fictional characters says it all: this look is about illusion and seduction and a dash of hustler chutzpah. This is a look that can't take clutter: rustic accessories can work surprisingly well, giving the room a rugged aesthetic -- it's the rough with the smooth, the grit to the mill. Earthy (but not sludgy) colours work well in both rural and urban settings, while modern floral prints add a smart, feminine touch. Curled up on the sofa with a good book, your living room's the perfect place for some "me-time".
Your bedroom has that classic look that never goes out of style. Sleep is fundamentally important to our well being. Clean, fresh air can truly aid sleep, but so, too, does a well-made bed and the best mattress you can afford. Touch is an important issue in the bedroom, from crisp, linen sheets to wool or even sheepskin underfoot. Elegance and relative simplicity are keynotes in your bedroom, using vibrant colours to make a bold statement.
You're a fuss-free entertainer, using good, honest ingredients. At home, natural, earthy colours and textures make dining a sensual occasion that connects the food on the plate back to nature. Eating is not just a basic need but a feast for the senses, and your sensitivity to light, colour, material and texture adds warmth to any environment. With a keen eye for the vernacular, you'll know that furniture and accessories need not have a designer label to give them real value. Indeed, English slipware, for example, has an intimate connection both with the past and with the simple pleasures of good, honest, no-nonsense food. When it comes to entertaining, you're pretty casual and relaxed.
Only you could pull off the "utilitarian chic" look! Working from home is an increasingly popular solution to the challenge of bringing up a young family and making ends meet. A dedicated home office - even if it's just the corner of a room - will help keep you focused and separate work from hectic family life. By using materials such as slate and stone and keeping to a similar palette of colour, you will be able to easily integrate your office space with the rest of your home.
Let a child's room reflect his or her personality -- not yours! If you have the space for a designated playroom, great. If not, then giving your kids the biggest bedroom can be a smart move, certainly once they're past the toddler stage: it gives them a designated space to play, enabling you to keep the rest of your home more, rather than less, how it used to be. Cheap and cheerful is ideal when it comes to most things in children's rooms: not only do kids grow fast, they also grow out of fads and phases at an amazing rate.
