The off-the-peg room scheme is not an entirely new concept: many of our childhood memories are populated by trips to IKEA, where fully-set up rooms, all of which could be delivered to our front doors and reconstructed within a matter of hours was the norm. Imagination and creativity were simply not required for this style of pre-packaged shopping, which in the case of a sometimes less-than-inspiring bedroom set, isn’t necessarily a good thing. However, what does seem to be rapidly gaining popularity is the concept of a shoppable room put together by an interior designer. A more inspiring way to buy a ready-to-go scheme which is packed with soul, these are highly curated, layered spaces which can be bought in their entirety, copied and pasted into your own home, or used as a starting point, from which your own creativity can flourish.
This modern wave of shoppable room schemes first floated onto our radars in 2023, when William Plowden launched The Roost, an online marketplace with a number of pre-designed rooms as well as a virtual design tool attached - think The Sims but for grown ups. ‘Everyone is good at spotting things they like, but the items might not work well together. The premise of The Roost is to aggregate the best British brands and products in one place and being able to visualise them in combination with one another’, says William, who cites the visualisation tool as its USP. It allows customers to enter the dimensions of their space before dressing it up with paint, fabric, furniture, lighting and accessories from the likes of sofa.com, Annie Sloane, CF Editions and Birdie Fortescue. The entire contents of this virtual room can be simply added to the basket, ordered and sent, in one delivery if you wish, to your house. The ease of the whole thing is, in part, what makes it so appealing.
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A new venture to join this wave is SALON, the brainchild of interior designer Alice B. Davies and her business partner Hannah Harris, who launched their own craft-led roomscapes and digital marketplace just a couple of months ago. Though perhaps not entry-level price-wise (some of the pieces could certainly be considered ‘collectible design’), what SALON offers is a central location where shoppers can find a variety of interesting, often hand-crafted objects arranged by some of the most notable interior designers around: this summer will see the launch of a room designed by Edward Bulmer, for example. ‘We felt that there was a bit of a disconnect between the incredible makers that we have in the industry and the customer, we wanted to make it easier for people to buy from artisans’, says Hannah. Being able to see the pieces used in the varied and characterful rooms in turn ‘provides a platform where customers can see the makers’ work in context, and how the pieces can interact with each other. [We’re] only one month in but people seem to love it – particularly ’The Delft Kitchen'. I think it’s the fact that you can just go to one place and have a room designed by incredible people, and to discover new brands and new makers’.
‘It’s a holistic thing too’, adds Hannah. ‘I could fall in love with the plates that I see in a room, but it’s also the floor, the fireplace and the plasterwork that contribute to the overall feel of the space. You don’t necessarily know where to look for some of these things’. At SALON, no stone is left unturned, and those who are often mystified by these architectural details have found reassurance in the pre-vetted brands suggested by Alice and Hannah.
For some, it is refreshing to buy a room that is already designed in its entirety, but for others there is an appeal in paying for a starting point which can be customised. For Holly Lomax, an interior designer who cut her teeth working for Rita Konig, launching her studio Effortless Interior Design allowed her to create just such an opportunity for her clients: affordable, pre-arranged fabric, paint and wallpaper packages (each of her room schemes costs £350). ‘I used to ask myself: “what would someone have to do to get access to amazing professional interior design and materials without paying a design fee?”’, she says. In 2019 she launched with a number of off-the-peg schemes. The idea is that Holly puts together a smorgasbord of prints, colours and textures that will work in harmony, uses a digital room rendering to demonstrate how a room could look, and offers her clients a portion of her trade discount when ordering the items. ‘It’s down to the client to do the measuring and enlist tradespeople like curtain makers and painters,’ she explains. The customer can also enjoy total creative freedom when buying furniture (though Holly’s renders make suggestions for the kinds of pieces that will work). ‘The whole experience has confirmed to me that there is a market for people who love interior design but also want to have a hand in creating it themselves’, she says.
You might be wondering if these pre-packaged rooms usurp the need for an interior designer. I am reassured that this is not the case. ‘I think it’s a separate market’, says Alice Davies. ‘In the same way that more and more designers are offering consultations, shoppable room schemes provide a level of design service to people who might not take on an interior designer’.
For some, there is a thrill in decorating a space entirely from scratch, using ideas, products, colours and fabrics that they have been carefully curating themselves. Though there are many of us out there for whom the whole thing can feel quite overwhelming. This new way of shopping mitigates that stress, particularly for those whose budget doesn't stretch to hiring a designer: there is reassurance, inspiration and beauty to be found, all of which can be delivered straight to your door. It sounds pretty appealing to me.
