INTERIOR INSPIRATION
BY KATE KINGSTON
Kate Kingston, Managing Director of Kingston Shaw, an award winning
interior design company with offices on the Wirral, London and Dubai,
shares with us the latest trends for creating the perfect home.
SPRUCE YOUR HOME UP
Don’t let your tree be the joke of the neighbourhood this festive season,
follow our 10 rules for creating the finest festive fir!
STEP ONE - LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION!
Pick the perfect spot, yes you can put a tree up in your living room, but
for maximum effect think about putting your tree on a landing or in the
hallway if you have the space. Ensure that it is near a socket, you don’t wont
leads and wires all over the place. If you are using a real tree, a cool spot will
limit the amount of needles that are bound to drop.
STEP 3 - PREPARATION
As with everything in life preparation is key, make sure that you ‘fluff ’
your tree, artificial trees in particular need to be revived, spending a
few moments fluffing their poor compressed branches can make all the
difference to the final vision. Have you got everything you need, do the
lights work, have you got enough ornaments, what colours are you going
to use, does your tree need a base, how will you cover it? Answering these
questions will elevate some of the festive stress.
STEP 4 - LIGHT UP
This is really our number one tip, spend time on getting your lighting
right, if you are investing in new lights try and go for copper wired lights,
they don’t tend to break as often. Rule of thumb is that you need 170 lights
per metre square of tree, but I say the more the better, a warm light is
forgiving but if you want a more contemporary look use a cooler lamp,
never use coloured lights!!
STEP 2 - SIZE IT UP
Measure people measure! You
now have the perfect space for
your spruce, ensure you know
your limitations, measure
the width, height including
anything you might put on top,
so ceiling height is essential and
the depth, The branches should
not be touching anything else,
you want the tree to be able to
breathe whether it is real or artificial. There is nothing worse than buying
the perfect tree to find you cannot get it up the stairs or it doesn’t fit in the
space provided. If you do have to trim the height slightly do it from the
bottom so that the tree keeps its shape.
66 wirrallife.com
STEP 5 - COLOUR & THEME
I know that you have been planning this all year dear reader, you have
chosen your theme and you have been collecting ornaments throughout
the months!!! Ok so just in case you haven’t, look at your home and that
will inspire you, if you live in a white palace then you can indulge in pretty
much any scheme you want, but the trick to making your Christmas tree
a living piece of art is to have it compliment your home, pick a colour that
accents your accessories in situ and go from there. The more traditional
of you will want to go for rich reds, golds and greens, the urbanites