It’s hard to design shelving when you don’t know what you want to store on it. Most of my possessions had been in boxes for the best part of a year, post divorce and house move. I knew that books, CDs, records and booze would all belong on the shallow shelves at the back of the room, but I couldn’t say for sure how much stuff I had, so we had to wing it.
Jonathan and I again used Pinterest to communicate design ideas until we settled on something that looked like an elegant jumble of boxes. I trusted him to decide on the proportions and to just ensure that we had the standard sizes for stuff like books and music covered.
The colours were decided last minute, once the kitchen was already taking shape. Jonathan asked me to pick four colours and leave him to it. I knew that I fancied a blue-green palette, so I rang the Dulux helpline and they kindly sent me an envelope containing colour swatches for every single blue and green hue they offer – hundreds of options. I put them on the worktop next to a poster I’d chosen for the room.
I picked out my favourite turquoise and a green colour that matched the paintwork in the hallway. Then my designer friend Carol took charge and chose two other colours to complement them. Sometimes you just have to trust the experts to get on with it.
Jonathan built the shelves in his studio as boxes, painted them in the various shades and then delivered and fitted them, literally from the ground up. The attention to detail, with precise gaps between each one, is breathtaking. Jonathan’s standards are always higher than mine!
