Our homes should seduce our senses, draw us in and unfold in front of us. Our homes should be filled with treasures we have collected from around the world, colours we adore should envelop us, textures that attract our hand and eye should always be present, art work that immediately captures our attention should bless the walls and great spots to curl up in with our four-legged babies, a good book, and a yummy cup of tea should be ever available to us in our homes. Like a masterly work of art, great interiors tell a story… is your home a sexy romance or a horror tale?

There’s no excuse for not having rooms you love, it’s not about budget and it’s certainly not about time (if we are honest with ourselves, we can always make the time to improve something that has such a beneficial impact on our daily lives). We must care enough about ourselves to put the necessary TLC – tools, labour and cash – into designing our homes in a thoughtful way that tells our story and seduces us every single time we walk in the front door. It’s imperative that we love our home; we spend so much of our valuable time there and often with the most precious people in our lives.

Before we divulge a recipe for seductive interior design, let’s be perfectly clear about how great rooms are achieved. A room will never be truly finished – great interiors evolve over time and are always open to change; as you find new treasures, make new memories, add new photos, new pieces of art, seasonal fabric swaps, and color trends. Embrace evolution and never settle in a space, our rooms, like ourselves, should keep growing and improving upon themselves. Rooms we love and that others love as well appear both timeless and perfectly up-to-date simultaneously. It is during this exquisite balance that our rooms become unexplainably alluring and seductive to both ourselves, and our guests.

Start with a palette that makes your mouth water and that is appropriate for the room’s main purpose. Consider colours that you love to wear, colours that make you feel sexy, energized or creative. A colour palette flows beyond the paint on the walls and includes fabulous textures brought into the room in the way of drapery, pillows, upholstery, flooring, throws, and wallpaper. Texture is as important as colour when it comes to creating fabulous rooms. The surface textures and fabrics you use should beg the eye to look closer and even invite a hand to cop a feel – just like in relationships, opposite textures attract, and it’s the contrast between texture and color extremities that creates gorgeous and exciting tension in a space.

Arrange your furniture invitingly, not simply lined up along the walls (think back to junior high awkward dances…), have furniture with purpose and include unique and interesting one-of-a-kind pieces that are too irresistible to ignore. Include conversation-starting artwork in every room; perhaps hang juxtaposing styles that playfully wink at the other pieces in the same room. Art does not have to ‘match’ your space, hang and display art that catches your eye and that you want to see every day.

When it comes to accessories, designers understand the seduction of threesomes. Arranging accessories in groupings of three’s creates visual magic and harmony. Every room should be dressed in mementoes from your life, heirlooms from your family, collectables from your travels, treasured finds from estate sales, framed black and white photos of you and the family, and ultimately adorned with things that make you happy.

Lighting is the most often-ignored design element that needs to get turned on! Hunt for great fixtures, spray a brass chandelier candy apple red and hang it off-center, be creative and mix and match your table lamps, run LED rope lighting under a platform bed or sofa, add spot lights to your potted plants and dimmable directional pin lights illuminating framed wall art. Imagine how glamorous and enchanting you feel walking into a candle-lit, dimly glowing lounge, verses walking into a super bright halogen lit medical exam room.

We hope you’ve got a sexy night planned with one of your rooms and that it has what it takes to be a seductive date: exciting conversation, great taste, sensually dressed, comfortably confident, a sense of humour and unexpected fun!

xo Sam