Last night we hosted our first Styling Workshop for clients and friends of AT Home Style. We had two fabulous guest speakers who shared their knowledge with our 35 guests. Kate Jones from Instant Impression and Denise Donovan from Empress Qui shared some great ideas. The event was hosted at the Cellar Door in Ringwood and was a great chance to pick up a few ideas and get you thinking about how you want your home to look and feel. Guests were also able to view a small selection of our new range of products which we had great feedback on.

 Kate Jones from Instant Impression Home Staging, has owned her home staging business for about 8 years and she focuses on dressing homes for sale. It was very interesting to hear her ideas around styling your own home and how different it is to staging a home for sale. One of the things that came through very strongly was not to style your home with the latest fad or fashions just for the sake of it. Instead, find pieces that you love and that mean something to you perhaps from your travels or items handed down from your family like antiques or little momentos etc. Invest in a few pieces of artwork you really love and then you can buy some cheaper pieces that you can replace as you tire of them or want a refresh. Like Tamara, Kate’s obsession is cushions and she gave some great advice around buying a couple of high quality cushions you love and then teaming them with cheaper cushions that you can move on every year or two as you want a change. Not being afraid of colour was also her theory… add some colour to your home to make it feel alive.

Denise from Empress Qi is a Feng Shui consultant. Her focus is to make Feng Shui accessible and practical for everyone. She did a fantastic job explaining the basic principals of Feng Shui including working out the intention (ie quiet sanctuary, entertaining etc) of your home and your room and ensuring furniture is placed appropriately to ensure the right energy. She talked about the Ba Gua sectors of your home or office and how this can help with the flow of positive abundance through all areas of your life. Something that many guest were interested in was “space clearing” (we have written a blog on this too). Space clearing is all about removing old or negative energies from a house, office or room to revitalize the energy. De-cluttering is also a big part of Feng Shui Denise explained. She recommended regularly doing a bit of clearing out or tidying up of cupboards or rooms to ensure a positive energy and clarity of thought. And, like Kate, one of the big things that came through was LOVE THE SPACE YOU’RE IN! That’s right – don’t wait till the next house, start working on the one you’re in to make sure you love it! It’s not a race though, do it over time and as you can afford it. Replace pieces and as you find the “right piece” and have the money to do so.   You don’t have to finish a room in a week or month!

So, thank you to our fantastic guest speakers – feedback has been really positive and we look forward to doing more of these sort of events in the future. And thank you to all that attended it was great to catch up and meet you and share some ideas and a few laughs too.

Angie & Tam xx