How to Be A Successful Interior Designer

Emma welcomes you into The School House, where she has lived for over 30 years. She moved here in 1991 with her husband as a newly married couple wanting to build a home for their family and explore their creativity.

First impressions are always important, so it is vital to set the tone and atmosphere you want to create within the entrance to your home - and Emma shows you how.

Neighbouring Emma’s home was an old barn, and after around 15 years of living in the cottage, they were able to purchase it. While it wasn’t initially joined to the cottage, Emma explains how they chose to integrate it as part of their home.

Emma’s kitchen was designed and built over 20 years ago, and still looks beautiful and functions brilliantly to this day. In this lesson, Emma shares the tips and tricks to creating a timeless design.

The interaction of inside and outside spaces is always at the front of Emma’s mind when designing any home. She explains how in doing so, you increase your connection to nature and the outdoors which is hugely beneficial for your wellbeing.

Emma finishes off the tour of her home with some final tips and tricks she has used here to really make it a special place.

For this section of the course, you will be joining Emma at her own installation at WOW!house, an annual exhibition of work by different interior designers who each take over a room and design it from scratch in their signature style.

Find out how Emma established the layout for her space at WOW!house, and discover how she turned the empty shell into a dynamic space through interior architecture and clever design details.

With the layout and architecture of the space established, Emma walks you through how she went onto create the perfect lighting scheme, as well as layering in the decorative details.

During this part of the course, Emma reveals the exact design process she applies to every project. Firstly, the all important appraisal and brief stage, where you are establishing the framework of the entire project.

The next stage of the process is creating the look and feel of the new home. Emma talks through how to begin placing furniture, deciding on the layout and working out all the hard finishes.

With the overall concepts established, it’s time to move into design development. This can be split into two sections; the architectural elements and the decorative components, both of which Emma explains in detail.

Learn about this vital stage, which is all about translating your ideas into very detailed technical representations that can be used by contractors to bring your exact vision to life.

Emma discusses the role of an interior designer on site and how to best work with a team of contractors to prevent any costly mistakes from happening.

Discover how a project is finalised through procurement and installation, and how best to manage these processes.

During this section of the course, Emma will be running through the key design principles that she applies to every project and are the guiding force throughout her work. First up, how best to approach planning a layout.

Emma muses on the importance of getting the scale and proportion right within a design scheme, and shares her tips and tricks for achieving the perfect balance.

Working with authentic, natural materials is a huge part of the design DNA at Sims Hilditch, and Emma explains how she uses them to create character and charm within her projects.

Emma is a firm believer in designing rooms that excel in both their form and their function equally. She talks through how to maximise the practicality of a space, while also making it beautiful.

The role of natural lighting cannot be understated when designing a room; Emma discusses how it provides a huge sense of wellbeing and can really alter the way in which you experience a space.

How a home makes you feel is hugely important. Learn about the design choices Emma makes to increase the sense of wellbeing in a home.

Find out about the finishing touches Emma adds into every project to bring moments of joy. These are little flourishes that won’t break the bank, but will go a long way to making the experience of using a home feel special and luxurious.

Wherever possible, Emma likes to bring a sense of the outdoors into the home. Discover how she goes about integrating the garden into an interior.

Lighting has the potential to make or break the atmosphere in a room. Emma encourages you to pay careful attention to every light source within a room, and offers ideas for your own schemes.

Emma welcomes you to the White Hart, the home of the Sims Hilditch design studio. It embodies her design ethos perfectly, and sits at the centre of her business.

The first pillar of Emma’s business is the design team. She explains the range of roles this encompasses, and the responsibilities of each.

Next, there is the operations pillar of the business which works closely alongside the design team to project manage and look after the procurement.

Emma discusses how best to communicate your story engagingly and authentically, while also emphasising the importance of imagery and branding.

The final pillar is all about the finance and culture of the business, as Emma ensures the people she employs are looked after and their career development considered.

Emma is incredibly generous with her knowledge in this lesson, as she deep dives into the business of interior design with her advice on the various ways you can break into the industry.

For the final part of the course, you will be joining Emma at one of her favourite projects; a family home in the Cotswolds. Here, she will be talking through the design process and how she applied her design principles.

In this lesson, Emma explains how she approached working out the best layout for optimum functionality and flow in this home. She encourages an open minded approach as to where a room could be best situated.

Emma has a particular passion and love for designing kitchens; they are the heart of the home, and are the perfect blend of form and function. She first discusses the brief for the space, and how she approached the interior architecture.

Next, Emma dives into the details you need to iron out at the early stages, such as creating a lighting scheme, designing comfortable flow and movement within the kitchen and choosing appliances.

Emma shares some of her tried and tested theories that I implement in every kitchen design for optimum functionality. Worktops are also a huge consideration in a kitchen, and covered in this lesson.

With the practicalities of your kitchen design all plotted out, it’s finally time to have fun with colour schemes and decorative touches. Emma talks through her tips for creating your own scheme, as well as sharing how she created this one.

In this country home, Emma was inspired to create a series of ‘back of house’ rooms inspired by the old country houses of Britain. She talks through how to design a small but mighty, hardworking pantry.

Originally this space was a hallway that led out into the garden, but Emma wanted to take advantage of its generous size and direct access to outside space and turn it into a flower room.

For the final part of the tour, you are joining Emma in arguably the most showstopping part of the whole project; the Cotswold stone barn. It’s an enormous space that was once used to house farm machinery, but is now a fabulous open plan room for the family to relax and entertain.

Emma offers some final moments of inspiration as the course comes to a close