Darren Palmer on Decorating Jennifer Hawkins' Home

One of the highlights of a very busy and wonderful month has been having the pleasure of collaborating with the perennially graceful Jennifer Hawkins on her and fiancé Jake’s dream home. It was an amazing piece of Architecture by Koichi Takada to begin with and the care and attention to detail Jake took in building the property is apparent on every scale. It’s a massive project and an impressive property with my role to simply make their dream house into their home.

The process was relatively predictable with the initial client meeting (trying not to be noticeably affected by Jennifer’s striking presence) but the process itself was #designinfastforward.

The beauty of the project was that Jennifer has a very clear sense of style and a focused direction on what she wanted to achieve for the interiors of their home, I was merely on hand to make their imaginings a reality. The timeline however gave me a month from first meeting until photoshoots for OK magazine (on stands right now) so Jennifer’s clear vision and decisiveness was an absolute necessity.

Thankfully we worked seamlessly with each other and share a common aesthetic so the creative process was a dream. The challenge was to make their new home looked lived in and soft, homely and comfortable.

Here are a few styling points that help to make any home present in it’s best possible light.

MOSSES:   I was loaned a great deal of flowers from Poho Florist in Potts Point for the shoot, the most versatile of these are the mosses in glass cylinders. They look great as part of a coffee table vignette or placed on a bedside to add some colour and natural interest.

FLOWERS:  Goes without saying that flowers bring a home to life. Look at the beautiful Magnolia in the image of Jen & Jake in their lounge room.

PLANTS:   Different to flowers by the fact they still have a root system and live for a much longer time adding life and softness to a home.

NON LIVING ARRANGEMENTS:  Bark, Sticks, Vines, anything that you can arrange and keep without water and upkeep. Fantastic for a textural element without the ongoing investment.

BOOKS:    They don’t just make you smart by reading them, they look great colour coded into your interiors.  Think of the cover colours, spine colours and what you want to pick up on in the room, or contrast against. They’re just as big a part of an interior scheme as the next point.

CUSHIONS/SOFT FURNISHINGS:     Will bring a sofa, bed or occasional chair to life and a lovely way to tie together colours in your room and to add an extra pop of colour or texture.

RUGS:     The base on which your whole room sits and a way to anchor all of the elements in the room. Rugs are a must.

ARTWORK:  Whatever your price point or taste express yourself with the art you use in your home. I love oil paintings (I was fortunate to have 2 of my favourite artists, Neil Frazer and Megan Weston’s paintings in Jennifer’s home) but photography like those from Otomys gallery are a less expensive and equally as dramatic way to make a statement on bare walls.

That’s how Jennifer and I collaborated to make her house a home. Use all of these styling pieces to add texture and life to yours.

JENNIFER HAWKINS AND KRIS SMITH LAUNCH MYER SPRING SUMMER 2013 COLLECTION

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH JENNIFER HAWKINS BACKSTAGE AT MYER SPRING SUMMER FASHION LAUNCH

JLH SHOES BY JENNIFER HAWKINS