Today I discuss working at the shops in Nottingham with Frank and Jerome on this week's episode of 'Interior design Masters' BBC/Netflix
I'm then joined by Anna Jacobs as she discusses how being an Artist saved her from a dark place and she shares the rules of colour psychology.
If you want to take advantage of my guests 10% online discount please visit www.annajacobsart.com using discount code: TVCarpenter
Sponsor:
To take advantage of the generous 15% discount from my sponsor
Thorndown, please visit http://bit.ly/TVCarpenter
Discount code TVCarpenter
Contact me: Wayne Perrey on Twitter and Instagram.
To learn how to achieve a Safe, practical and beautiful home,
join THE DIY DOERS Facebook group
Today I discuss working at the shops in Nottingham with Frank and Jerome on this week's episode of 'Interior design Masters' BBC/Netflix
I'm then joined by Anna Jacobs as she discusses how being an Artist saved her from a dark place and she shares the rules of colour psychology.
If you want to take advantage of my guests 10% online discount please visit www.annajacobsart.com using discount code: TVCarpenter
Sponsor:
To take advantage of the generous 15% discount from my sponsor
Thorndown, please visit http://bit.ly/TVCarpenter
Discount code TVCarpenter
Contact me: Wayne Perrey on Twitter and Instagram.
To learn how to achieve a Safe, practical and beautiful home,
join THE DIY DOERS Facebook group
On today's show. I'll be talking about working with frank and Jerome in the skate shop in Nottingham in this week's episode of the Interior Design Masters. And we'll be talking to my good friend Anna Jacobs as we talk about her art and colour psychology. Hello and welcome to the TV carpenter. My name is Wayne Perry. Over the years I have worked on various i nterior design shows and garden makeover shows. So I decided to create this podcast so that I can invite them over. We can have a chat and i t can give you all the inspiration and all the top tips from them so you can create your dream home. Hey, huge thank you to my friends at Thorndown for sponsoring this podcast. If you want to paint this really easy to use. So it has a self primary in there, which means you don't have to do that much preparation. It has a UV blocking protection, so it keeps the wood looking good for longer and it has a high resistance to colour fading. So it's going to look as beautiful as the day that you painted in his water repellent and has a frost resistant coating, which means it will last up to 10 years. It can be used on all interior and exterior woods, but also it can be used on metal, plastic, and terracotta. I think you would want to choose torn down. What I love about fallen down is not only can it do all the things that I've just said, but also they've made a creative whilst being a nontoxic eco paint that is as gentle to the environment as possible so it's perfect around kids and animals. If you want to see the amazing color chart which showcases their well-chosen heritage and modern colours, please go to thorn down.co. Dot. UK and for any of my podcasts listeners, they're giving 15% discount on any online purchases. Just type in the code, TV, carpenter. If you managed to catch up with interior design masters this week, you probably were seeing it was a very tricky one. It was the shop week. So episode three we were in Nottingham and the eight contestants got split into pairs. So there was four shops spread all across the Nottingham town center. And I worked with frank and Jerome. Frank was leading it and Jerome was his second in command. It was really tricky. There was two builders, there was me and a guy called will, and those two great decorators as well. And it was really, really hard because he decided to change the floor. So we covered the floor in Birch ply, which in itself is a, is a tricky job, especially as you've only got two days and those people are going to be in and out and you've got to do all the decorating. But the ceilings were so high that we had to get'em a decorating tower in that logistically having to lay a wooden floor while as a tower moving above you, you're trying not to get paint splatters on it below so it don't get damaged. So I think I probably, out of all the shows I've ever done, interior design shows, garden maker, which shows, I remember coming away from that one feeling absolutely exhausted. One thing that was really tricky about their Nottingham was logistics and this is the same for everybody. So we could only load and unload at certain times and there was no direct parking outside the shops and there was no workshop area within the shops. So a lot of the builders, particularly some of the other um, teams who had bigger, um, builds to make them, like for example, Nikki's with all the, um, the tubes and things like that, they set up a separate building. I think they use an empty shops and where, which was where they set up load the tools and the builders could, could work in there, which is fine. But then logistically you have to carry everything back to your shop. Just health and safety. Things couldn't be left outside the front of the shop. So like I said before, while I was working, doing the floor, everything from the shop was either in the basement. Luckily we had that space or was in the shop itself. Nothing could be taken outside the shop. So I think just logistically, um, nothing was a really tricky one, but the result was beautiful. I think what they did and the guys came up with, with using the flooring on the wall really worked. It was a, it was a new concept. We were all a bit scared. There was lots of what, what do we use, what DC do we use, how do we attach it? And if I'm being totally honest, I stepped away because it was walls. I kind of pass that one over to um, the decorators and let them have that stress. Why Ben, really funny as well is I watch watching the episode. There's lots of stuff obviously, but they don't show because you can't show everything. You've got four shops, you've got eight contestants. And there was a big feature that they had in the window is all these, um, boot racks for all these shoes. So that was all made at Birch ply and we designed all of that and created all of that. And it all got mentioned by Mary Porters as, Oh, they had a wonderful window display at the front and everything got crammed in at the back, but you know, it's fine, but I was like, I built all this love in the window and you don't get to see it. But anyway, that's the nature of, of the job and nature of the show. It was good fun to do as always. It's great fun working with frank who really pushes to the end and I admire him for that. Literally up until the last minute, his going, can you just, I nicknamed him, can you just cause you like, yeah. Can you just put this picture up? Can you just put this mirror up? And then it got to the end where as that mate, we're done. We were exhausted and it's eight o'clock and we have to put our tools down now, but it looked amazing. The shop looked fabulous and he got to go through now. I'm really pleased that I've managed to get my good friend Andy Jacobs on the podcast. She's an amazing artist and she'll explain to you how art actually saved her. When everything kind of went wrong. She'd lost everything. She was left with her two children and art and that's what sustained. And she's ended up creating this amazing company also. She's a color psychologist, so she gives talks at the idle home show and she, she unpicks the whole idea of color psychology and how to demystify and make it work for you, which is amazing. And because she's also so lovely, she's given our listeners a 10% discount off anything in her shop. So as she's describing her beautiful products and her artwork and her lamps and her cushions, just think you can get 10% off if you go to her website and put in t v Carpenter tests of capital t v C carpenter into the discount code. You'll get 10% off all of our online products. I'll put the link in the, in the bio at the bottom.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Speaker 1:Talking to me. Yeah. We've known each other. Um, we met old school in that. We still teach other on Twitter, I think.
Speaker 3:Yeah.[inaudible] great interior design. Challenge. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I think I watched, I w I saw something on Twitter, I saw some of your, um, your work or amazing products, lamps and things. And we'll talk a little bit about those. And then we started messaging each other. Then we realize we live around the corner from each other. And I went to one of your open houses, your, your background, you in corporate, you know, and, and I, I've looked on your website and Jacobs, art.com and, and on that as this beautiful video that just talks about you and find yourself being a single mum. You worked in corporate and you just as like w you know, everything was a fresh start and you, you got into, you know, you picked up the paint brush again and, and found out again. How important was that over that?
Speaker 3:Really, really important because being autistic, so I did auto level and RJ level and both my teachers, it was two different schools, always said I should, I'd always make my career and my money out of Bart. And I only ended up, um, kind of in the corporate world, totally by accident. And I only intended to stay for a year. So by the time I'd been there eight years, I was really chomping at the bit to be creative anyway. And then when I decided to leave and shortly after found out, you know, I'd lost everything and I was a single parent of a baby and a toddler actually. But it was such a dark, difficult, miserable, I have to say not to exaggerate it cause that's not an exaggeration time. And my refuge really was starting to paint and to draw because the, you know, the initial time was appalling. But as I sort of got through that and I started to settle in except my circumstances, I realized that actually I felt this burgeoning happiness and joy in instead of strength and freedom coming out of me that, you know, that was kind of my sense and side because I realized that in fact, even though I'd lost everything, might, well my house, my money, my career, everything I had, I was left with the two things that I wanted most in life and which I'd always wanted most in life. I even knew that at the age of 17, which was children and creativity, the ability to draw and paint. So I thought, Oh my God, I'm actually here. I sort of landed in the universe with everything that I always wanted and nothing more, nothing. So starting to draw and paint, um, really started sort of feeding that sense of happiness and freedom. And it also made me sort of really come back in touch with myself because the corporate environment really wasn't me. You know, I was okay at it. It was all sort of relatively successful, but it wasn't who I truly was. I realized that, you know, as I was creating against, that's who I was. I'm a creator. I'm a creative. Um, you know, I was always good at drawing. That's why I love doing, I was exploring color. So the more I painted, the more I became myself and sort of fell into that place where you finally know, Oh my God, actually this is who I am. I'm living the life I'm supposed to be living. And that's quite, you know, take me God over 40 years to get there. Crazy. But I think some of us in that, we just never get that. And I was just really lucky to be almost thrown and forced into that position.
Speaker 1:Um, on your website you say, you know, you, you want your art to inspire that happiness, joy in life and strength and your, anyone who looks on your website or on your social media, you, you create these beautiful, colorful, vibrant, like particular birds and wildlife and, but what you've been really clever at doing is you're, you're paint something so beautiful and then you'll turn it into a lampshade or you'll turn it, you know, into, into a cushions and supply it out with. How did you manage to get you from your art into like homeware,
Speaker 3:you know, in all the disaster. I was offered a first solo show of paintings by a little gallery in delage and just really sweet. She'd heard my story and just wants to do something to support me. And she'd seen a couple of paintings. So I did that. Um, and it sold really well, almost sold out. And she happened to have a little homewise gift shop above the gallery. And she said to me, Oh, one of your paintings. It was the Welsh reflection painting would look fantastic, the lampshade. And if you make it into a Lampshade, I will sell it in my shop. And I just thought, oh, that's interesting cause you know, I'd had these lofty ambitions to these be this really super cool conceptual artists like Damien Hirst make millions and become really famous and all of that. And I very swiftly realized that.
Speaker 1:But would it really make you happy being a Damien Hirst? It
Speaker 3:made me happy to make a lot of money. Yeah. But, but so, so actually just the, all this is quite an interesting idea because this is a way to carry on being creative, but also actually another way of earning money to support my kids because I'm the only person supporting them. Um, but it did take me two years to work out how to do it because I'm a physical painter. So I actually paint with brushes and pencils and you know, ink and, um, on paper and board and all that kind of stuff. And I have no Photoshop or digital skills at all. So, you know, I was had other moms in the playground who happened to be designed as they were coming around and helping me and showing me how to do things. Um, I had a boyfriend for awhile. He was good at it. He taught me loads and sort of gradually I worked on my skills. So, you know, I had to work out how to turn my sort of oblong painting into a very long thin strap to wrap around a shade. And then you just think, well what is a lampshade? Yeah, how do you structure it? Where do you get all the bits from? And you know, it's just a matter of Foti rounds and asking and all that. So one thing led to another and two years later I managed to produce my first shade and it was rubbish.
Speaker 4:I don't think you're going to say that. That would be worth a fortune. Now that's an original ama Jacob rubbish. We'll have the shade.
Speaker 3:Well, to be honest, he looks perfect from the outside, but it's the finishing cause I really love making sure that everything's finished beautifully. Yeah. So, you know, it's actually quite difficult. So I was offered this amazing master class for free, um, by this incredible old Malaysian lampshade maker who used to make all the lampshades for John Lewis Colfax and Fowler, all of that. And he has this amazing workshop in west London and there's sort of corrugate plastic roof, which has loads of holes in it. So it would ragging in there. And I just went there for the day and he really sweetly sort of, I took my lampshade I've made and we then we practiced together and he showed me all of the real artists and techniques for getting it perfect. And that really sort of switched my lampshade making upper levels for the U. I was really making top quality lampshades and you know, it went from there. So I produced a few samples for their dollage artists. So can house, so know these artists. Open house would be really crucial for me as actually building my brand and my business. I did some cushions as well because that's much easier than I'm shades and the samples sold really, really well. So then I went to the new talent section at top drawer to sort of launch my brand officially and see if any shops would stock it. And I suddenly got 15 retailers and I went home and I went, Oh my God, I've got about 80 lampshades. All it truly does
Speaker 4:this is you ring that little guy up again, that Malaysian guy, you're busy. I did.
Speaker 3:We did. Oh my God, I've got to be, he said, look, I haven't got time myself, but he put me in touch with his roller. So there's, there's people who literally just roll and Tuck the lampshades. Yeah. So what do I dislike? Cut All the fabric. I laminated it onto the back end. Then I drove it. In fact, I think my mom was doing half this driving as well. Drove it across west London. He wrote them all, wrapped them, and then we had to pick them up to my car. Oh my God. It was crazy. Crazy. And then me and my mom in that house or couldn't fit anything in my flat. We just spent weeks boxing things up, taking it, taking it to my Hermes, shipping it to all these shops. Very quickly I realized, oh my God, this is, this is really crazy. I'm never going to survive this. And I went for a sort of mentoring dinner with an old partner from my daughter and I used to work in a city. The great thing is keeping voted top best business lawyer in the world six years in a row. Wow. And he would always sort of supported me at the law firm and he sort of carried on supporting me afterwards and I was telling him about it, problem my business and just thinking, I don't know what to do, why don't even know where to store everything cause I can't fit it in my flat. And he said, I know from this night forwards, you must never make a single lampshade yourself again. You need to find, um, go to a village out in the countryside, maybe a Wales, find a farmer who's got a spare farm house or sort of a landed family who's got some of them sort of fed, um, spare shed somewhere. But the all your stocking, their train up some local women to make your lampshades and do all your checking on, that's what you need to do. And I was like, oh, okay. Interesting novel approach to changing my business. And you know what, the next day an old friend of my mom and dads phoned me up and she was the woman who gave me my first employment when I was 10 to illustrate some flyers for her shirt making company. And I used to work there selling the shirts for them and she said, ah, I heard that you are incredibly busy and you might need some help. I've sold my business, I've made all the money I need to do. I'm, I'm retired. My husband needs me out of the house war. So would you like me to help you one day a week? God bless. I happen to have a bomb school, some stuff there. And I was like, oh my God. I went down and as I was talking to her about what I needed, she went, wow. All My um, um, peacemakers. Basically they used to do all of the sort of sample cards for them and the little details on their shirts and things. They were wanting to see if there was any other work around. Um, why did we invite them over? I invited them over and suddenly I had the whole plan that my business partner had, um, told me, you know, the law firm partner and I trained up all these local women stored in the barn. And that's the first stage of my sort of slightly more professional business. It was amazing.
Speaker 1:I love, I love how the universe does that. It doesn't, it just sometimes it just, it just works out and things are meant to be. But what also like, like we're talking about these lampshades, what makes your stuff so beautiful? You came up with this really create concept, idea of the actual base, the glass back. Now talk me through that because I, that is stunning and it's just, it's, it's, it's a, a timeless piece now, which just sets off your lampshades. So explain that to me as well.
Speaker 3:I had the idea for base because when I first launched the lampshades I needed to display them on something and I just couldn't find a land base that I liked because I didn't want it to look too traditional cause there's lots of sort of turned wood ones which are beautiful but didn't really work. My lampshades and I didn't want something so ultra modern that um, it was only going to fit in a modern environment. And I also wanted something that would support my lampshades with color but not dominate them. So I, you know, I went round the shops, I just couldn't find anything that worked. Then I went to care originally and I found some really cheap gloss lamp bases there and they just had sort of white plastic wiring and then, but it gave me the idea of, I suddenly had this vision of how she, how it could work. So I took them home, literally smacked off the tops of these blast[inaudible] basis. I haven't, I know nothing about electrics at this point for product design, I just experiment all the way. Plastic wiring found some colored flecks on Ebay and wide AARP. And I remember I made the first one with black flex and I put my Welsh reflection out of shape cause that was the first lampshade I had. And I wind it up and I, you know, I put the lampshade and the base together and I was like, oh my God, this looks amazing. Even though I'd sort of come up with the idea myself, I was totally thrilled by it. And my boyfriend I had at the time, I literally could not wait for him to come over. I said, you've got to come over, you've got to see this, you've got to see this. And he came and you went, oh my God, that's dreadful. Just stick to a nice white ceramic base for God's sake. And I actually don't down.
Speaker 1:I got it. I've, I've just got, I've just got to say, cause it's interesting that he said that, right. Because obviously we haven't explained what what it is, but um, it definitely goes on. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Oh, do you want the base? Yes, you're right.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So it is, it's, it's, I've got like a, this is a big glass, um, clear like a decanter esque kind of bull bus, um, vars almost with the colored flecks that go through the neck all the way down to the bottom. So you can put the flex more inside the dome. So you know that it can be bright colors, all different colors and things. But it's this crystal, like it's like someone's hand. It is someone's hand-blown blow and a big bulbous kind of decanter.
Speaker 3:Yes. Can I just change the word boldness smaller? Can droplets or something more elegant? Yes. Yes. Which is more time is trying to create. So, so moving on the story, I had confidence nonetheless, even though my boyfriend said it was rubbish because I knew actually it was good. So I then, um, to cut a long story short, I did find some manufacturers in the UK to then design and make my own because actually they were really, really popular. Even just the samples and I showed them at the trade show and then now, um, hand-blown the highest quality crystal glass you can get. They're hand-blown in Norfolk. And what was wonderful was the protests of designing them. I sort of drew all the pictures and the shape that I wanted. I wanted this really beautiful curved droplet shape. So it looked almost as though you could hardly tell how they would stand solid on the surface to make it this really lovely organic, um, sort of feel to it. And, um, so we kept, you know, literally handcrafting each one with the master glass maker and then we would look at it, we'd have to cool it and um, obviously try it with Shane would go to[inaudible] not quite right. The curve isn't quite right. And literally they would get this crystal gloss and smash it and start again. It's like, oh. Um, but we did finally come to the right shape and it was all beautifully done by hand. And then we went to the mold maker in the Lake district and had this beautiful carbon and OIC mold made, which is a beautiful thing itself. And now they're all mouth blown through a huge long tube into this carbon and oak mold. And then their all handcarts hand polished, hand finished. And then put together, um, by hand at the glassworks and then shipped straight off either to customers or to my warehouse. So they are a really beautiful, I feel almost like they're a piece of art and sculpt.
Speaker 1:Did you know Basie on that's an a lot. I think that's one of the reasons why I contacted you because I just thought how stunning the word and, and, and it was at the time, no one had ever seen anything like that. You know, there is very similar ones out there. People have kind of caught on to that concept of putting the flesh through it non look as beautiful because the way, cause like you said, the curves and the way it looks. But what I love as well is the fact that, you know, you started off this little cottage industry kind of thing. And then last year, you know, you could call it a popup shop, but it wasn't no popup shop. You were Kinda had, you had the shop in between habitat and heals on[inaudible] Oxford Street, um, Tottenham court road. And it's like, could you be La positioned between habitat and heels? I had the most amazing shot. And you had a shop there like[inaudible] shop there. It's amazing.
Speaker 3:Oh, it was absolutely. Basically every so three to do. It was a heels concession. So in one way it was part of heels, but I acted as my own shop with my name above the door, like heels and habitat too. And I have to say when I put that up, it was just so, it's kind of almost a bit surreal. So that was amazing. But just after a while, my boys stopped a secondary school and that's a whole nother matter from shitty school. And in the end I decided that in fact, although I loved it and it was amazing, I needed to prioritize, prioritize the children.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And it pulls you away from w w what started out was so like, you know, you said the trappings of being commercial, corporate world is all of those things. Then you end up finding yourself. You're not careful back in that row again, you know? Yeah. I remember talking to you and you were like, I haven't done any artwork for a while and need to create a new piece because what you do is you create the beautiful piece of art and then you develop it into cushions or whatever. And I remember thinking you saying, I haven't developed anything because I haven't got time to paint. So it's probably pulling you further and further away from what actually is important and what you love. You know,
Speaker 3:you know what you're so right. And you know, that's partly why I was going to give up my law firm in the first place. You know, I had a child who was in constant nursery and I was commuting all the time. So, um, that, you know, now, now that I've given up the shop, which was hard, but I knew it was the right thing to do. It's so much better with much, you know, we used to work much better as a family. I'm flexible against the children. I have much more opportunity to be creative. I just work from home. I run the business from home and I actually, you know, doing the Crystal Palace Artists Open House because only about it was what, three or four months after I shut the shop. I just moved the shop here. So I've got my flat now. But it's so wonderful. Like you know Zack, my boy can sit upstairs in his room and play on his x-box while I'm doing the show and customers are coming. Cocoa loves selling[inaudible]
Speaker 1:Oh my God, her room was turned into her room. Is that the, the bargain basement. So if there's anything slightly second that was her room and I went up there and she was selling me stuff. She was working,
Speaker 3:hi,
Speaker 1:your children are amazing.
Speaker 3:Great. I'm sure she'll take over the business one day.
Speaker 1:Oh absolutely. The reason why I ended up doing the idle home show with the DIY I do is with my business plan. The was through yourself. Cause I remember you done the ideal home show and you used to do like these up cycling things. And remember you've got me involved originally to assist you and be the build and then you went, you know what, I don't want to do they up-cycling stuff. I don't want to do the bird. Can you just take over that the, so that, so then I ended up doing the ideal home show and then you went off and did your, your color psychology, um, demonstrations. I never got to see your demonstration because we, the way the scheduling works, you know when you're doing a show there yourself, you don't want to go there when you're not performing. Cause it's just groundhog day Sunday. So Sunday I never got to see your color psychology. So how did you get into first day? How did you get into color psychology?
Speaker 3:When I was deciding to change career, before I left the law firm, I was, I knew I wanted to do something creative. So I started doing short courses in various places. And one of the short courses I did was interior decorating and design at Chelsea College. Of Art. So I did, um, a 12 week course, one day a week and part of that course was color. And I, I've always loved color. Um, I've always known, I'm very sensitive to it. I've had various instances in my life. It's been very obvious that color is having a really big effect on me. So I've always been fascinated. I've always read about it a lot. But this course was the first time I'd actually sort of structurally sort of been taught color by somebody else rather than me work reading books. And you know, I find that really interesting. And then my, um, that six months after I finished the course, my tutor had to go into hospital and they needed somebody to cover and he said, well, um, subject you most competent with. And I said, color, actually, that is my real passion. And he said, great. Teach that aspect of the course. So suddenly six,
Speaker 1:hang on, you went to burlesque and then you went and taught it. That's confidence. That's amazing though. At
Speaker 3:that point it was only, you know, it was only half a day. And you know, he sort of showed me lots of his notes and sort of, I sort of took over his course, but then in fact it became really popular and I ended up writing my own course and creating a whole thing for Chelsea because it was really popular part of the main course and we ran it as a separate course sort of over two, three days. And you know, that was wonderful because I then I was really interacting with people and we did lots of color experiments tonight. I learned all myself as I was teaching and we were sort of exploring lots of aspects of it. So you know, really I've just sort of worked with color more Mirabelle and you know, I've kind of brought to bear all my experiences, artists, my own personal experience. Recolor also my experience in the corporate world because when I was at the law firm being head of marketing and business development that also covered brand and styling. So I had to use my knowledge of color in terms of the commercial world as well. It's very important part of it. So you know, in all of that, that's how I've actually put, to my knowledge, I just kept learning, learning, learning, and going from my own experience where, you know, when we came to the ideal home show, they found me somehow on Google as an upside Adler, which was wonderful because I was also teaching up cycling at that point because I loved doing that as opposed to my interior design. But you know, very quickly and that's when I brought you in. I was just like open may do, but I want to do color, I want to do color. That is to persuade them
Speaker 1:to go to go in a different direction. So yeah,
Speaker 3:to go to different, yes. For me to go in a different direction there. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So as I'm autumn, my listeners, some of them will be interested in putting color in their house. Obviously glace their color, psychology. You can spend the whole week doing it, but what's the, what's the bones that like what, what's the starting points of that and give us some top tips around it.
Speaker 3:I think the most important question you need to ask yourself, and this is what I used to ask my interior design clients as well, is what do you want to feel when you walk into the room that you're putting color in or you're designing or what do you want to feel when you walk into your apartment or house? And that's the most important thing because our home and how we feel in our home is incredibly important for our wellbeing is one of the most fundamental things that will support us feeling happy and healthy. So for example, when I was working in a law firm, it was really intense. I was working really long hours and I was working with color all the time. It was in, you know, it was just stimulating. I was talking, talking, talking. And when I got home, all I wanted was no stimulation whatsoever. I just couldn't cope with anything. So my house was completely white. And that was really important for me if my wellbeing. Whereas now when I'm a single parent of young children, when I opened the door, now I want it to be bright and colorful and happy and feel creative. So now my flat has lots of bright color in it. So it might be a different thing whereby for example, when you go into your bedroom, you might want it to feel really peaceful and calm. So then once you've discovered what you want to feel, that it will immediately start indicating where you want to look in terms of certain types of colors. So for example, then you use a color wheel, which is really easy to get. You can look it up and Google, get them an Amazon art shops, lots of different places, and you start looking at the cooler colors, which are blues Greens, um, some of the cooler purples. And they actually having have a physically calming effect on you. And it's not just, um, a kind of airy fairy where we were, we kind of theory, it's actually scientifically they've actually tested people biologically and found that people's heart rates actually lower when they're in the context of blue or when they're looking at blue for example. So it's very real. This is not just in the mind. Yeah. Yeah though is really good color for stimulating your mind for example. So then, but if you want to feel sort of more intellectually stimulated, you, you know, might have yellow in your study or your office and you quite often find that sophisticated businesses will have yellow in a room where people are having to uh, brainstorm for example. But I think what I'm particularly interested, and you know, you can learn a lot about this color psychology is it's about how you combine colors together. It's about color palettes because it's all very well knowing the yellow stimulates your intellect, blue calms you down and red gets you, you know, fired up. But how do you actually apply that in the context of a room? Cause you can't have everything just blue for example. So then what you want to do is you, you can dial up or dial down the sort of calmness or energy that you want in a particular room by combining it with different colors. So for example, if you want something really calm, you might do it all in blue, but what you need to do is vary the blue. So you want darker blues and lighter blues and you want brighter blues and you want dollar blues and it's all about contrast. And you'll know where from all this work you do. So much of good design is based on contrast of rough and smooth light and dark and all of that. So you want to build that into your color Palette. But if you then decide, actually I want to little bit more energy in the room, I don't want you to that kind of calm and flat. Then you might go look at your color wheel and look at the color next to blue, which will be a green. So then you start adding a little bit of green in it and that's just going to lift that color scheme and make you feel a little bit more stimulated. Yes, yes. So this is, so this is, so if you want to just dial it up a little bit, go to the color next to it. But if as you were saying, you want to really feel really happy and energetic and more stimulated, then go to the color on the opposite side of the color wheel. So the on the opposite side of blue is orange. So then you could do your room half and half blue and orange and that is going to be really full on. It's going to, you know, sort of make you feel quite energetic but doing half and half is pretty full on. So then once you've gone down there, even think, oh, I'm maybe going over the top. So then you dial it back. So then probably what you would do as a base of the cooler color, which is blue, which has a slightly karmic color, and then maybe do just a highlight of orange. And that will be fundamentally compote with a bit of stimulation, but then you can dial it up. The more orange you add, the more energy it's going to have. And of course, what's great about orange is that it's a really happy color. So most people will find that it brings a smile to their face when they look at orange. Well, it's one of those more light color. So what I always say to people is there's no point going by the theory of color psychology and say, oh look, I want to feel happy in my room. So that's why I put orange in it. But maybe you hate orange, so you putting orange in your room, it's not going to make you happy. It's gonna make you miserable. Yeah. So with all of these things you have to take into account your personal response to color. Also, the color psychology that you can read about. What I find really interesting is that our personal response to color is affected by so many different things. It can be affected by, um, particular events in our childhood that have been associated with the color. For example, school uniform. Yeah. A lot of people who have a really intense color fiscally for me is a color that they really disliked for quite a long time. As an adult. It might be that you grew up in a house that was just all yellows and oranges and basketball as an adult you have a reaction to that. So where is yellow and orange is of posts to make you feel cheerful and happy. Actually it will make you feel, it will kind of push you away or make you feel repulsed in a way. Yeah. Because you want to move on from that stir childhood stage. So
Speaker 1:yeah, that's, that's so interesting. Cause I remember, I remember that kind of a way as you were saying that I remembered listening to an interview of this, this girl who loves, who painted our house always had yellow in the house and she couldn't work out. Yeah. And then she spoke to her color psychologist and they realized that she lived in a terrace house in like in Sheffield and her front door was painted yellow. She on the street, she was the only house and mum was quite wacky and painted it bright yellow. So when she got home it was home and she felt safe. So she hadn't realized that until she looked back and went, that's what I've always got yellow accents, a yellow everywhere because I feel home and I feel safe. Yeah,
Speaker 3:that's really interesting. And that's exactly it. So I would say the three things you want to take into account of um, well, four things really. When you're choosing colors in your home, you've got a psychology. It's how do you want to feel? Yeah. Look at this theory of color psychology, that's really easy to look up. All that things like, you know, orange is supposed to make you happy. Blue is supposed to calm me down. Yeah. You look at you, you get experienced with your own personal response to colors. It's really worth just going through magazines and going to colors and justify just listening to your own body and your own buying. Just see how you respond. And then the final, really important part of the Jigsaw is the direction of the natural light. In the room that you're decorating because that also then completely affects the color in the room. So for example, in a north facing room, you are going to have quite a bluish, cold colored light, gray light, and it's also going to be much darker most of the time. So for example, if you've decided, I want to feel warm and cozy when I want to walk when I walk my living room. And the problem is it's north facing, so therefore it has a blue light. What you want to do is counteract the blueness and the grayness of the natural light with the warm colors of the color wheel. Because those warm oranges, reds, yellows, pinks, actually do have a nurturing, warming effect. So that's how you then start doing it as well. But it might be, I've got this all my son to come back.
Speaker 1:No, I told you've made it really simple. Yeah,
Speaker 3:he wants to feel welcoming and warm in your north-facing living room. But you hate reds, orange and yellow. So this is what we have to take into account everything. So then you look at other ways to make, um, a north-facing room warm. And it might be that you have a blue base in there, which is sort of carmy cause that's the colors you like, but you warm it up with warm wood colors. So you really look at the words and the, the stones and all the hard materials as well. And you use war metallics. You might then use golden copper, which brings the warmth in a different way. So you really, your, you're looking at how to read 360 degree, um,
Speaker 1:approach to it. So it's not just that you're, you're picking something cause you like it in a magazine. You're picking up your, your, your, your adding cause it's interesting, I'm sitting in my lounge recording this and uh, you know, I had the, uh, the to level the gaze or to LG studio come in a few years ago and we, my room, uh, with myself and my wife, we chose this stiff key blue, which is quite a rich, dark blue. But yet we've got, we've got loads of, um, gold coffee table and gold lamps. Like the Cheyenne, you know, and it just lifts it and it makes it, you know, makes it a lot warmer than, it's like you're saying, it adds those extra tonal colors to it.
Speaker 3:It's quite a subtle thing in a way. But you can really do it yourself. And the thing that I would advise everybody is to plan it all out on paper first. Don't start buying lots of things and spending lots of money and patient lots of walls before you really experiment and it will save you so much time on money. In fact, one of the things I suggest people do is rather than going out and buying cushions and taking them backs and not quite the right color or you know, just even working out what kind of colors you like in a room, just to take a piece of clothing, go into your kids' wardrobes, go into your wardrobes, get a tee shirt and plunk it on the Sofa and go, oh, okay, actually red really works in here. Or Oh my God, that pink looks awful. And just start trying out things like that. And you'll really soon start getting to sort of familiar with how the light and the color is working in the room and few,
Speaker 1:it's interesting with the courses that we do at the idle home show with me and Steph at the dio, I do as we do like picture hanging and things like that. And it's about rules. There's rules you have so you can make an informed decision and it's same for the color. Like you know, like you said, it's not hocus pocus, there's that, there is some basic rules in there, but then also you flavor it with what actually you like and your emotional connection to[inaudible]. So once you know the basics, then you can choose which way you want to go and make an informed decision, but also then also go with a gut decision as well of a, an emotional response.
Speaker 3:Exactly, exactly. And it's almost like if you know the rules and you know the structure, then you can actually choose how break those.
Speaker 1:If someone wants to get some more information about color psychology, do you offer any workshops or do you know any resources that people should, should approach[inaudible]?
Speaker 3:I do. Um, what my main sort of time that I talk about at the moment apps, I stopped teaching at Chelsea just because I couldn't do it with my business, is I do talk ideal home show and grandsons live fairly regularly each year when it's in London. But very soon I'm going to be starting a blog, my own blog, which might not be trailing on Instagram for awhile, but I need to be starting my own blog to actually start talking a lot about this and starting to sort of talk about it and do pictures about it on my Instagram. So if you follow me on Instagram in the next couple of months, I will have it all up and running and we're going to go start going through things like north facing groups, south facing rooms, different feelings. And I'm going to be very much focusing on color palettes rather than just talking about single colors. So it's worth keeping an eye out for that.
Speaker 1:Oh No, absolutely. Now, final question. I want to get a flavor of what's your perfect room? So I want you to describe to me if you could live anywhere, I know your house is particularly beautiful amount of the house you've got now is standing, but if you could describe if w where's your happy place and what drink have you got in hand at that at the time?
Speaker 3:Oh, that's such a great question. Um, my happy place would be in a huge tall ceiling, probably quite contemporary home actually. I mean this is fairly typical. I'm so unoriginal, but with big doors out, overlooking a garden with a breeze. Um, lots of luscious planting and I, I was going to say an apple spreads, but I think I have did that long.
Speaker 4:They're quite new as well. It's not even like that though. Jay did like pimms aperol Spritz is quite a new thing and you're already over it. How many did you drink last summer? Whites? A hello?
Speaker 3:It's okay. I did it two years in a row in Italy. So you know what, I think I'm sort of almost going back to a really lovely gin and tonic with one of those lovely fever tree topics. I'm sort of going back to, it's a very classic thing and I've always with some strawberries,
Speaker 4:I love how you're talking more about alcohol than actually colors or interior design. So I want to know what your color, I want to know what your happy color is.
Speaker 3:Happy tell them. Um, my being happy color is my absolute favorite color combination at the moment is a really rich turquoise blue, pretty bright turquoise blue with blush pink and bright grass green. Nice. And that is my favorite color combination and it just makes me feel really happy.
Speaker 1:Okay. So that's it. Uh, it's been an absolute joy. So if anybody wants to in touch with you or find out about your products and what social media and so your website obviously is Anna Jacob on a Jacobs art.com. Yeah.[inaudible] dot com and what other social media handles do you have?
Speaker 3:My social media handles. So on Instagram I'm an Jacob, so it's Anna, l y s e Jacobs. And that's because I've discovered that my psychiatrist father named me his Elvis door to analyze, analyze with a double. And can you believe that we only realized that few years ago. Red Eyes analyze JFF. So that is, yeah. Uh, Emily's Jacob's, yes, it's the Instagram and then on Twitter it's at Anna Jacobs. Art with a capital n capital j and or Facebook is energy comes design
Speaker 1:fabulous. And it's been an absolute joy. Thank you so much for talking to me.
Speaker 3:It's been so lovely.[inaudible] thank you.
Speaker 1:That speaks to and that's a lot of Tai Chi. So that's the end of the podcast for today. Hope you enjoyed, uh, my insight into working with frank and Jerome on the skate shopping Nottingham on interior design masters and I hope you enjoyed my conversation with my good friend Anna Jacobs. One inspiring lady. She really is. And the color psychology is actually quite simple when she, when she explains it. And I'm just really happy to know that when I wear my orange tee shirt and all my interior design shows, it's there to make you happy, blend new that anyway, I always like to wear my happy and thank you to Anna Jacob's again for offering us the 10% discount def gave when you go on her website. Um, and put in the code at t v Carpenter, that's capital t v capital c up into, and you get 10% off and a once again, a huge, huge thank you to make good friends at filling down, paying for sponsoring this episode. Um, and they also are giving us 15% discount if you put in the same code. T V carpenter. Thank you for listening and I look forward to speaking to you next week.
Speaker 5:[inaudible].