David Bowie made me paint my office ceiling terracotta! The result will inspire you to make your own brave decor choices

Interior designer Francesca Swan is one of Ideal Home's new Open House contributors, sharing her thoughts on the concept of 'Everything' and what makes a home special to you. See the rest of her articles here.

It’s November 2020 and the nation is in the grip of lockdown. We have left London after twenty years, and are in the middle of our first ever renovation, in a new apartment, in a new town.

We're living and working in one room, whilst construction happens around us. I am making a million choices a day, with little time to think and zero experience to back it up.

It’s highly stressful chaos. I am battered and overwhelmed - sensorially, emotionally, mentally, financially. I have lost all sense of perspective and the ability to know what I think anymore.

I walk into my office, which, unlike the rest of the apartment, is nearly completed: there is flooring, white walls, black woodwork and a green and white Murano chandelier, loudly making its presence known.

I am now faced with the reality of decisions that I actually can't remember when or why I made them.

I look up at the ceiling. It's terracotta, paired with the green Murano chandelier.

How do I feel? Have I just made the biggest error known to man? Or is it actually fabulous beyond words?

It is definitely a lot. But is it Everything?

So if you are joining us for the first time, welcome. Let me introduce Everything.

Everything is my design inspiration hack. It’s a strong chemical, sensory response to something that creates a deep and unique emotional connection.

Everything can feel immersive, transportive and transformative; it’s the antithesis of feeling nothing.

There is only one you in this world. Your Everything is the embodiment of your individuality, originality and uniqueness. It inspires design choices that are personal and meaningful to you.

In a world where we are more often than not living in a state of near constant anxiety, our Everything can help us feel more present, grounded, and emotionally held in our home.

It was Everything that brought me to my terracotta office ceiling. And that Everything came from David Bowie. More on that shortly…

My office design

The office was designed as my workspace during a big life/career crossroads; I was in the midst of a mental health crisis and debating if, when and how I could return to work.

I needed a space to think freely, feel inspired and safe. I wanted my cultural icons around me; looking down, inspiring and guiding me.

As it is for many of us, art has always been a big source of Everything for me, so I’d conceived a black and white concept, with art bringing accents of colour.

Whenever I go to a gallery or an exhibition, I always buy a poster to frame and add to the visual timeline of what I’ve seen and loved.

I have a fabulous poster from Louisiana, the amazing gallery just outside Copenhagen. It’s a soft focus close-up of Elizabeth Taylor’s dressing table, featuring an intimate framed portrait of her and Richard Burton, surrounded by her jewellery and boxes.

It's a true Everything piece for me. I'm fascinated by their love; it was tortured and complicated, but equally very deep and beautiful. The picture is a spectrum of green, red and orange, with deep texture, light and shade.

This was joined by black and white portraits of Joan Didion and Patti Smith.

The room was north facing, and it had a high ceiling, great proportions and a big picture window. It was bathed in bright light in the morning, yet by early afternoon was dark and somewhat dingy.

It needed warmth and Bowie led me to the terracotta..

In this case, it was a limited edition Geoff MacCormack photographic portrait from 1975, with Bowie in the make-up chair, between shots.

MacCormack was a long-time friend, tour companion and creative collaborator of Bowie. This shot is sublime; perfect golden hour light, softly illuminating the vivid orange of his hair and his divine bone structure against the translucency of his skin.

It also captures the magical fusion of creative energy on-set; the make-up artist is engrossed, there’s action all around him, yet Bowie seemingly exists in a different world of tranquility, separated by his own thoughts. It’s a tiny glimpse into his soul, captured by the intimacy and trust shared with MacCormack.

It reminds me of the infinite possibilities our creativity can unleash. It makes me feel Everything. From this curation of art, the rest of the room design flowed freely.

Now, for the other side I’ll explore in these columns; how do we practically bring inspiration and design to life, especially if we (me) are coming from a place of little experience and a lot of stress?

My Everything created a mood and colour palette, but how to use that to make a functional space in reality, whilst keeping the spark alive?

Let’s start with colour, which I need to preface with a light health warning; I do find colour theory a bit scary and impenetrable.

I have good colour intuition and confidence in my choices, given they always come from a place of meaning. But applying the science of what technically goes with what, feels very rigid to me and can shake my confidence, which is not ideal when designing.

The terracotta was the right thing to do for the office, because it needed warmth. The white and the black also worked to provide simplicity and contrast to ground it.

But it was a north-facing room and I got the white very wrong, using a very stark, blue-based shade. As a result, that room always felt cold, even with the warmth of the ceiling.

To make it even worse, I accidentally picked cool, rather than warm, white bulbs for the chandelier. They couldn’t be easily changed as they were wired into the base, so I just lived with it. Says a lot about my mindset and stress levels at that point…

It’s frustrating, because that simply didn’t need to happen. There's such a wide spectrum of whites and neutrals to work with different colours and light orientations, not to mention so much expert advice on how to use them.

Yes, you can always repaint it. But it's a pain in the proverbial, it's expensive, and it's not sustainable. If you can make time to get advice and do it right, it’s worth it in the long run.

So, my lesson here is don't mess around with colour and light. If you're not sure, use the experts. Coat Paints, Paint and Paper Library and Little Greene are my go-tos. @interiorsbyvictoria is also a genius and offers colour consultancy and super helpful content.

You may also be wondering where the ceiling came in? Why not a wall?

Firstly, I wanted the space to feel unique and original to me. I’d definitely not seen many terracotta ceilings on my numerous tumbles into deep interiors internet holes.

Secondly, the ceiling was also in response to the floor.

I'm really inspired by old Parisian apartments - dream home, one day. The apartment was in an early Victorian building, so I wanted to honour that and go for something with character.

I’d already chosen a beautiful rich mahogany engineered hardwood herringbone to run throughout the entire apartment. Most of the apartment was very light and bright, which made the tonal nuance of the wood dance in all its complex, grainy glory. It also brought a slightly dramatic, dark yet warm contrast and cohesion throughout.

It balanced the terracotta glow of the ceiling, with the simplicity of white providing a pause for the eye and a blank canvas for the art.

So that was a win. By the way, I’m obsessed with flooring, so a lot more on that to come in future columns.

There were many other focal points in that room born from an Everything. Reflecting back, I can now see the evolution of the design motifs which have stuck with me. My stubborn style, if you will.

Take the oversized live edge wood desk. The room was large, so a small desk would have looked silly. Plus my ADHD likes a lot of space to work. I couldn’t find what I wanted, so I had one made from a supplier on Etsy.

It was one of a kind and organic; every time I sat down at it, I would find new beauty in the materials and textures. Unexpectedly, it was also a lot more cost-effective than similar off-the shelf options for that scale.

Now for some important context - my office was also our guest bedroom.

To address this, I sourced a mustard velvet sofabed - secondhand, yet in perfect condition from eBay. Again, not widely available and an unusual colour. It was quite a brave colour choice, but thankfully it worked in tonal harmony with the terracotta, and pulled through the yellow in the rest of the apartment.

Side note: getting that beautiful little beast into the apartment was not fun. Essentially a reenactment of Ross from Friends' sofa. Pivottttt! How the two of us got it up three flights of narrow outdoor stairs, in the dark, unscathed, I will never know.

Anyway, we now had ourselves a working guest room/office.

However, herein lies the rub. The design intention was a creative space, led by the Everything of Bowie.

The colours, the art, the furniture; all perfect for me, but they utterly steam-rollered the functional requirements of the guest room.

The sofabed was the only concession to it as a guest room. However, due to my behemoth desk, the clearance around the room was dreadful.

There were also no window dressings. We didn't have any in our bedroom either. There was a big canopy of trees, and it wasn't overlooked at all. Being north facing, we also loved being woken gently by the sun for the most part of the year.

But that's clearly a choice for us. Guests might not necessarily have felt the same. Not to mention waking up every morning to a terracotta ceiling isn't for everybody.

Safe to say, it wasn't very effective as a multi-purpose space; it was an office first and guest room a very distant second.

To be brutally honest, we knew this and weren’t overly concerned. Not to mention that the communal open-plan layout of the apartment wasn't really designed for more than two people.

However, the office/guest room is a very common scenario. If this is you, then it is worth stepping back to think about how you balance your own personal creativity with the needs of guests as well.

So, hopefully now you're now getting a sense of how Everything works, but also how you can apply it practically.

It can be a really brilliant creative hack, but needs to be used effectively.

My Everything can be very pushy and dominant; form sometimes overrules function, which isn’t ideal. When it's important, don't be afraid to question it.

In real terms, if you are overwhelmed with a million decisions to make, how do you prioritise and where are the most important places to start?

Where can you let Everything lead and where do you need to hold it down? How do you establish your own guardrails and make the most of the expert advice and brilliant technology out there?

For me, that's colour, layout, lighting and flooring. It's getting the bones right and deciding where to spend your budget, which I'm going to talk more about in coming weeks.

Final word from me; you and your Everything are one of a kind; unique and individual. When you bring this to life in your home, it is an act of love and service, not just for you, but for the others who you share your spaces with. Remember, all this can, and should be fun and rewarding.

Now, over to you. Have you had an Everything moment in your home? Is this sparking something for you? What do you want to read about in my future columns?

Let me know in the comments or over on my ig @yourhomeiseverything__ I’d love to hear from you..