East v West – The Interior Design Insight
East and west Scotland might only be separated by 40 or so miles, but the style choices differ greatly in terms of what appeals to buyers of new homes.
Award winning interior designer Eileen Kesson, founder of Envision, has been working with us for a number of years and brings with her a wealth of experience and crucially that individual insight on what works in which part of the country.
New Homes Week (16-22 May) is a great opportunity to showcase what we have to offer, with a new build programme that will see over 700 new homes built in Scotland this year.
In a highly competitive market across Scotland the Miller Homes choice includes over 43 apartment and house styles, ranging from one to five bedrooms. Our differentiators are the quality of our product, the locations in which we build and the final key aspect in attracting buyers into the development is the appeal of the show homes.
Drawing on the latest trends from the internationally renowned Maison&Objet bi-annual exhibitions in Paris and Design Week in London, Eileen gets inspired by the new textures and materials on offer as well as the new colour palette trends. She is constantly thinking about the next home she is designing the interiors for and the individual components that need to come together to enable the home to flow from room to room.
Embracing the differences is all part of the appeal. In the West, the new Yeats showhome at Newton Park, Cambuslang is very fashion led and has a sparkly ski chalet theme. The style embraces the look of the moment, which is lots of whites giving a very modern, fresh appeal and with this blank canvas the contrast comes from accents of black and sparkles, fusing with natural driftwood to finish the look.
Heading East and the new Jura show home at Ashludie Grange in Monifieth, has a fantastic contemporary feel with lots of copper and coral in the colour palette which ties in perfectly with charcoal giving an elegant country feel to this very popular house style.
The next phase of show homes will introduce lemon and lime into the mix for the Hughes at Kinglass Fields in Bo’ness, while Regents Gate in Crossgates will bring an oceanic feel with blue, green and grey as the base colours to dress the Glenmuir show home.
Eileen relishes the challenges each house style and location brings:
“We work with most designers including Designers Guild, Romo and Harlequin and source our furniture and local suppliers to bring aspirational, fresh design ideas to each new showhome. If we can’t find the exact look we want to recreate, then we’ll find the right fabrics and create our own curtains, bed spreads, cushions and other finishing touches in our own busy workshop, to complete the look.
“People looking to buy a new build are maybe looking for ideas on how their existing lifestyle will fit in, or perhaps a complete change and they therefore need inspiration on the look and ambience they could achieve in styling their own new home.
“We reflect the Miller Homes brand throughout every showhome and I’m particularly proud of what we achieved at the Heriot at Polofields in Colinton, Edinburgh. Finished to an extremely high specification throughout, the location with its breath-taking backdrop of the Pentland Hills created the perfect opportunity to dress the interior of the home in opulent, classic, luxurious fabrics and colours, including burnt orange velvet dining chairs, which create the wow factor as soon as you walk through the door.”
Meeting the differing needs of every locality and new showhome style is an evolving challenge and while we continue to get fantastic feedback from potential and new customers who come to look at our new homes, we’ll keep offering innovative and inspiring ideas to keep the interior design at the cutting edge of the latest trends.