Meet The Interior Designer: Alice Grace

My career background is half teaching and half property. But I was always drawn more to the property work, as I was fascinated by people’s homes. I worked in sales for high-end residential property companies, but the marketing side suited me better – designing property brochures and writing articles for press features allowed me to look at people’s homes in a creative and non-competitive way. However, I always knew I wanted to work for myself. I have quite an entrepreneurial spirit, but it’s taken me nearly 40 years to find something that’s stuck.

My style is best described as timeless and considered. As a design studio, we value simplicity as well as the power of pattern. While we focus on an elegant sophistication, we often introduce an element of playfulness to give our spaces that ‘Alice Grace’ touch. Every client has unique requirements, so we always take the time to uncover their aesthetic and functional needs. As a design firm, you’re hired for your approach, but you must reinterpret this to reflect your client and give them their money’s worth. It isn’t about reinventing the wheel every time but is about drawing fresh inspiration and giving them something special.

I love warm, muted, earthy tones with touches of blue. In the past I’ve worked with a lot of newbuild homes and we’re currently working on a self-build project for a client that will come alive with the right colours. They don’t need to be bright, but I find comfort in browns, reds, greens – all of which work well with warm, natural oak, which we used in our own homeware collection. As for fabrics, I will often ground a room with rich velvet upholstery or soft furnishings. I love it contrasted with a lightly patterned linen or embroidered cotton. 

When it comes to pattern, try to choose one larger-scale pattern, some grounding plainer patterns that perhaps introduce different textures like a bouclé, and then perhaps a few smaller-scale patterned pieces and a stripe. You don’t want to have too many things going on that are fighting for attention. One of our most recognised rooms is a bedroom which illustrates this well – a larger-scale, relatively busy paper, a grounding velvet headboard and then a nice mix of bespoke-made soft furnishings alongside a pop of blue in the bed throw and lampshade.