More More More: Making Maximalism Work in Your Home and Life

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Maximalism can combine items from any era, not just the distant past (Image: WalesOnline/Rob Browne) So I didn't need to be sold on having stuff and colors and displaying everything in a way that makes everything displayed seem interesting. And yet, midway through this book that should not be as long as it is, I was incredibly tired of hearing about how being bold, brash, and big in your interior decor displays can make you happier, more confident, and whatever else you become when you switch to maximalism. Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen is an English interior designer and television personality, best known for his iconic design role in the original series of BBC's Changing Rooms . The much-loved 90s home makeover show, which returned to our screens after 16 years in August 2021 on Channel 4, saw Laurence lead the team again in the second series of the reboot. We shouldn't be feeling that we've got to conform to a fundamentally 20th century concept of minimalism which suggests we should be controlling our interior spaces as if it's some kind of pathogen against nature.

Since 2017 he has appeared on the Australian TV series House Rules in seasons 5-8 as one of three judges, co-starring with Home Beautiful editor in chief Wendy Moore, and award-winning Australian architect Drew Heath. In 2020, Moore and Heath were replaced by interior designer Kyly Clarke and builder Saul Myers. The 'May Morris' suite, inspired by Cotswold designer and daughter of William Morris, using patterns from the Llewelyn-Bowen Fabric Collection. Bookspines by The Original Bookworks (Image: Steve Thorp) The home he would most love to put his stamp on is that of his new Cotswolds neighbour Simon Cowell. In 2004 Llewelyn-Bowen designed the interior of the Inc Bar in Greenwich, England in a former 1830s music hall. The design features Larry's Bar, named after Llewelyn-Bowen and "the Divan", a dimly lit nook, a sort of make-out room. [20]For all carbon-based life forms, their default setting is to maximise. You should allow a room to grow towards the light, like some fabulous coral reef, that has layers and layers of memories and happenings."

I’m very moved by people’s faith,’ he says, ‘it’s a beautiful thing. I also get very moved by the historical accretion of faith. Our churches which are so very old and so very beautiful were created by generations of people – there were no short-cuts – and then their descendants went there and sang, worshipped and read poetry. That moves the hell out of me. I don’t need God in that; the people are more than enough.’

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And from there, the results vary but a maximalist could easily Kondo their surroundings and remain maximal. This room is based around a design of repeating sunflowers which I think he [Oscar Wilde] saw as a symbol of himself. Gilbert & Sullivan took the piss out of him and the aesthetic movement with Patience, and in fact the wallpaper in ‘May Morris’ is called ‘Down The Dilly’ because it features a tulip and a lily; in the aria that Bunthorne sang, he walked down Piccadilly, ‘with a tulip or a lily’.’ I’m always mildly concerned if what I’m wearing isn’t uncomfortable or chafing,” he adds. “I think that to feel properly dressed is to be really quite sore in places.”