WE HIT A MILLION!
I just couldn’t give up the opportunity to give myself and Kate a whopping big shout out! A virtual high five! A slap on the back. A week ago, we hit over a MILLION downloads of The Great Indoors Podcast! We’ve recorded 50 episodes and as we turn two years old this is a milestone we never even imagined. And after two whole series recorded inside the confines of our ‘duvet dens’ due to lock down restrictions, which was a huge credit to our patience and our producer’s technical skill, we are back!
This week was a special occasion as the lift in restrictions allowed us to be reunited, after 6 whole months, and we aired our house tour of cookery writer Skye McAlpine this week. The last time I saw Kate and our producer (handily another Kate) was on 11th March when we recorded our house tour with Orla Keily, just days before the lock down commenced. It was out a time when you couldn’t buy a roll of toilet paper for love nor money, remember that?!
So, our meeting at Skye’s, while we were fully sanitised and socially distanced, was just wonderful to be together again. So many of you have been in touch over the past couple of months to let us know how much you appreciate the podcast, how it’s been your little pod of normal while we continued to chatter around colours and cushions while the world went into spiral. It’s also been a little float of normality for me to hold onto to. The show must go on as they say, and we have been buoyed up by all your reviews on the app and messages on the facebook group.
However, it wasn’t all cushion plumping. An incredible call to arms on Instagram around the Black Lives matter campaign compelled Kate and I to take a good hard look in our own back yard, the world of interior design, and tackle the startling lack of diversity in our industry. We opened ourselves up to have conversations with people from the British BAME interior design community to listen to their stories. This resulted in a special segment on our series 7 episode 5 as we passed the mic to people with experiences of blatant discrimination. The community sat up and took notice, a lot of beliefs were challenged. Some incredible initiatives have been taken from Kate and Rumi’s Design for Diversity pledge all the way through the Alex Dauley and Sophie Ashby’s United in Design apprenticeship initiative. The world of design can only be richer and more interesting with more voices and perspectives adding to the creative pot. Kate and I will continue to do our bit and bring more minority persepectives to our platform. Our recent episode 5 of series 8, featuring Skin from Skunk Anansie, who shared how she was the only black person on our Interior architecture degree, was our fasted download to date.
Moving forward we have a wonderful 9th series planned as we continue to enquire what it takes to make a beautiful and interesting interior. We have some very exciting celebrity doors to knock on and plenty of good cheer and chat to ease you through the cooler months and darker evenings. This is when our homes really come into play, and with talk of another lockdown on the horizon, we need to get our interior design game on and make them the best that they can be! And the facebook group continues to be the place to get your design dilemmas answered.
Sophie Robinson photographed by Alun Callender
And on that note, I’ve been super busy producing my new online course, which you are going to LOVE! I might even get Kate on board with it, stranger things have happened. She has been very experimental with colour the past few months with talk of yellow kitchens and the purchase of some very bright green trousers. Perhaps she has discovered the mood lifting joy of colour! Either way if you feel you could do with some feel good vibes when it comes to décor my ‘Bold, Brave and Beautiful interiors’ online course is just that. It’s about abandoning fear and reason and opening your heart to what you love and then surrounding yourself with it! And for anyone overwhelmed at how to create a maximalist interior, I share my process and hold your hand every step of the way. The discounted pre-sale price is currently on sale now, so have a look here about everything I will be sharing.
Meanwhile I’m back in the blog seat and look forward to sharing more colour loving design inspiration over their, on Instagram and of course on the podcast too. See you in the Great Indoors!
