When you’re gearing up to try something new, whether it be jumping off a cliff into a cool lake, expecting your first child, or buying a new home, you need a cheerleader in your corner. You know, a hype girl saying you got this! It’s going to be great! You can do it! I’m here to tell you Lonika Chande is your hype girl for getting out of your comfort zone at home. She is today’s guest expert, and it’s just one pearl of wisdom after another! CLJ Summer School students, sharpen your pencils and get ready to take some notes.

1. What is something I can try today in my home to get me out of my comfort zone?

There is no doubt about it that with interior design, you gain more confidence, the further you push the boundaries each time. You build this up incrementally. For example, with colour, you might paint a piece of joinery a wonderful bright colour in a family room, and next time you get the opportunity to decorate, you feel emboldened to take it up a notch and to paint an entire room in something vibrant. Paint in particular is so powerful, it’s the single most transformative thing that you can try out easily yourself at home. I generally find that you’re more likely to regret it when you decide to play it safe, and don’t take the risk, and look back and wish you’d taken the plunge, rather than the other way round.

2. What is your preferred source of inspiration?

Whenever possible, I visit exhibitions in London and take a lot of inspiration from these. I visited a Gaugin exhibition at the Royal Academy in London a few years back now and am still heavily influenced to this day by the powerful colour combinations. In terms of far flung travel, I have visited India a few times, and the depth of colour, textiles and architecture there–it is to me, like n0thing else on earth. I haven’t been for some years, but it has influenced my work ever since my first trip at 18 years old. I use a lot of Indian block prints in my work as a lining fabric, and a lot of rich colours I keep coming back to–Indian yellow is a favourite of mine.

3. How can I deal with decision paralysis?

I think the most difficult design decisions have been when it comes to making decisions in my own home. Working in the industry, means you are spoilt for choice when it comes to ideas, but harder I suppose when it comes to then deciding on something and finally executing it. At first I really struggled with our bedroom at home. It is such a small room, and while it does have two lovely sash windows, there is little else in the way of redeeming features – the space is pretty much all bed. I dithered with wall colour for a long time. In the end I went for an off-white and bright green gloss painted wardrobes. As it is all bed – I decided to make a feature of it – and designed a canopy bed. It gave the space the character, softness, and colour that it needed. This was a process that evolved in the end quite naturally. I wanted to use textiles that meant something to us. I had our bed upholstered in a striped fabric that was leftover from a backdrop at our wedding, an Indian block print acted as a lining fabric and we used a sunshine yellow linen as the main fabric with a silk tassel trim that I had lusted after for a while, in colours that pulled the fabrics together.

4. How can I add character to a new build or an overwhelmingly blank canvas home?