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| BoHo Home photo |
London stylist Emily Henson’s
latest book—Life Unstyled: How to Embrace Imperfection and Create a Home You Love—is
really a self-help book disguised with photos of home interiors.
Fun BOHO home interiors, which link it to Henson’s previous book, Bohemian Modern. And if boho is what gets your heart singing, as it does mine, then you’ll want to own both volumes, as I do.
Fun BOHO home interiors, which link it to Henson’s previous book, Bohemian Modern. And if boho is what gets your heart singing, as it does mine, then you’ll want to own both volumes, as I do.
Life Unstyled is also the
name of Henson’s blog, and she created both the blog and the book to further
the cause of realism at home.
“As an interior stylist, I create perfectly
styled images for my clients in order to sell their products,” she writes, “but the truth is that
these pictures don’t represent real life. It’s all a bit of fiction
and fantasy…intended to inspire but also setting impossiby high standards of
perfection.”
Her solution? Live stylishly but make room for imperfection.
The first third of the book illustrates how:
- Work with what you’ve got.
- Live with signs of life.
- Embrace good clutter.
- Paint is your friend.
- Break the rules.
- Put creativity before consumption.
Good lessons all, and in the
final two-thirds of the book Henson takes us inside homes where the owners have
put these admonitions to work. All totaled, it’s 160 pages of ideas on how to do the same in your home.
Here are some of my favorite photos from the book & why they resonated with me:
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| Debi Treloar photo |
What I like most about this room is how the bookshelves are
styled—or not, as the case may be. Some books are upright and some are stacked,
but all can be easily removed from the shelf and read, then put away. There are no actual
bookends, but the homeowner has repurposed other objects to serve in that capacity.
My
favorites are:
- The stack of pretty teacups
- The collection of green bottles
- The bowl of photos
- The globe
- The bowling pin
These items may or may not strike a chord with you, but...
- The teacups jumped out at me because I got rid of similar items when I downsized. They were teacups inherited from my husband's family. How I wish I’d thought to display them like this!
- Ditto with the green bottles. I wish I still had my collection of Jamestown handblown glass. We’d bought those pieces on various vacations to national parks, and seeing these green bottles reminded me of my own.
- I don't own a bowling pin, but if I did it would remind me of my dad, an ardent bowler, who passed nearly three years ago.
- I’m not much for displaying framed photos on the wall or a shelf, but a pretty bowl filled with snapshots? Now that’s something else. I might try that since I’m always looking for reasons to buy pretty, colorful ceramics.
- The globe reminded me of being a kid again and waiting for the Christmas catalogs to arrive. My mother would give me an allowance, and I could pick out what I wanted Santa to bring. I always considered a globe but every time nixed it in favor of something else I wanted more—poor lonely globe!
The point is, nothing in this room looks new or expensive.
But the room itself is warm and comfortable. It stands ready like a hug to welcome all who enter.
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| Debi Treloar photo |
This bedroom and my own have lots in common. We also have
two hand-me-down chairs that are usually piled and/or draped with colorful quilts and
other linens. Sometimes the linens are waiting to be put away. Maybe I got them
out to see how they would look somewhere but neglected to put them away, and so
they ended up becoming part of the look of the room. It's not a bad look.
I really like the wallpaper in this room that's mounted high like a
towel rack and unrolled. What a great way to lead the eye up to those high ceilings and fill some of that cavernous space. I’m a person who doesn’t
like the idea of pasting printed wallpaper to my walls, even though I love
looking at wallpaper patterns. This is a way I could use wallpaper and change
it out when I tired of it. Consider this idea: three rolls—either in the same or coordinating
patterns—hung as a headboard or behind a headboard. They could be mounted even
or at different heights.
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| Debi Treloar photo |
Haha! This reminds me of my sofa. Colorful quilts are a
great way to hide worn or damaged upholstery. My sofa’s only a few years old,
but I have three kantha quilts on it covering spots my cat likes to scratch—the
arms and across the bottom front. For some reason, she won’t scratch the quilts.
I can take them off for visitors if I want, but actually, I like the relaxed
boho look they give the room.
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| Debi Treloar photo |
If you're lucky, maybe you inherited pieces similar to these. I remember wood-framed sofas (solid walnut, no less!) and stereo cabinets like this one from my childhood. Remove the turntable and repurpose as a console or bar cabinet.
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| Debi Treloar photo |
It’s hard to tell from this photo, but the top of the table
has been decoupaged and sealed. Think of all the favorite images, prints and
colors you could bring into a room doing that. And what a way to get extended
miles out of an old table, since it’s usually the top that experiences the most
wear and tear.
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| Debi Treloar photo |
Speaking of pets making themselves at home, these pets on pillows are sure to warm any heart. The mirror’s hung too high for my tastes,
but I do like how the dangling bulb pendants with differently shaped bulbs hang
in front of it so the light is reflected. Think how inexpensively you could source the lights; all kinds of decorative cords and bulbs are available these days.
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| Debi Treloar photo |
I love how this old tub has been refurbished inside but left in its unfinished state on the outside. The towels look beautiful displayed around it as well. The stacked bricks substituting for legs look cool, but I'm a little concerned about stability. It also looks like a deep and relaxing soak, but how do you get in and out? Details...
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| Debi Treloar photos |
This room sports wallpaper that resembles a painter’s drop
cloth, and it makes a stunning background for the sofa upholstered in a mix of
florals.
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| Debi Treloar photo |
Changing out hardware is an easy way to give a piece of
furniture a new look. But how about mixing the hardware up? Not one of these
drawer pulls is the same as another. The look is fun, eclectic and vintage.
Yes, I still think this is a self-help book. Why?
Because it made me remember something a visitor to my place
told me long ago, back when 90 percent of what I owned was hand-me-down,
homemade, improvised, or used. She said she loved coming to my apartment
because there was so much to look at and everything had a story.
And remembering that helps. This is a
principle it’s easy to forget as we prosper and can afford more new stuff, but
it’s a principle worth remembering to keep our sanity, our budget, and the planet healthy.
If you want more…
- Use the affiliate links below to order Life Unstyled and Henson’s other books for your very own.
- Check out her blog, Life Unstyled, where you’ll also find links to her various social media feeds.
- Follow my blog with Bloglovin, or sign up with one of the subscription services at the bottom of the page to receive emailed posts.
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