Hello and welcome back to Home and Hosting with Louis Burg, the
podcast of We talk all things home hosting, interiors style,
and how to make the everyday feel a little more considered.
I'm your host, Louis Burg, and I hope you're doing well wherever
you're listening from. If you're down here in the
Southern hemisphere with me, I hope you're keeping warm,
watching the leaves turn and fall and maybe leaning into
those slower, cosier days at home.
I've been trying to find the sun wherever I can, and just
perching with my laptop and working away, trying to keep
cosy. But I do admit I am loving
wearing the robes and the cashmere knits and the cosy
slippers at home. But if you're listening
somewhere a little warmer, maybe you've got the windows open,
you're enjoying a proper spring clean, and that garden is
starting to do its thing again. Either way, I feel like this is
actually a very good time of year to look at our homes
properly. Whether you're getting ready to
hibernate a little more or refreshing things up for spring,
it's often the seasonal shifts that make us notice what is
working in our homes and what maybe isn't.
And today I want to talk about something I think comes up a lot
when we talk about homes, but maybe we don't always have the
right language for it. And that's the difference
between a home that is clean, a home that's styled, and a home
that actually feels considered. Because I think a lot of people
fall into two camps when it comes to what they think makes a
home nice. The first camp thinks is a nice
home is a clean home. Everything is spotless, the
cushions are thoroughly chopped, the carpet has vacuum lines, the
kitchen bench is completely clear, everything has been put
away. The house is tidy, the floors
are clean, the bed is made and visually it gives up this very
controlled idea of what a good home looks like.
And then there's the second camp, which is a nice home is a
styled one. Every surface has a tray, every
tray has a candle, every candle has a book.
Next to it there are vases, bowls, beads, tiny objects,
little stacks of books and cushions, throws, florals,
sculptures and every corner has been turned into a little
moment. And I think what's interesting
is that both of these homes are trying to achieve the same
thing. They're both trying to look nice
and feel nice. They're both trying to
communicate that the person who lives there cares, but one can
end up feeling sterile and the other one can end up feeling a
bit overdone. So today I want to talk about
the middle ground. Not just how to clean your home,
not how to decorate your home, but how to present your home
well. Because a home can be clean and
still not feel beautiful. And a home can be styled, it's
to not feel put together. And the home that actually feels
good is usually the one that is being considered clean enough to
feel calm, style enough to feel warm, edited enough to feel
tasteful and personal enough to feel like someone actually lives
there. So let's get into it.
I want to start with the first type of home, which is what I'd
call the clean but sterile home. And this is the home where
everything is technically done. There's the sofa, there's the
coffee table, there's ATV unit, there's a dining table, there's
the bed frame, and there are two bedside tables.
And maybe there's a rug. And maybe there are cushions.
The furniture categories have been ticked off and the home is
clean. Everything is in its place.
The floors have been vacuumed. The surfaces have been wiped
down. The cushions are properly
chopped within an inch of their lives, like they're standing to
attention. Bunny ears is what stylist will
call it. But somehow, the home still
doesn't feel warm. It doesn't feel layered.
It doesn't feel beautiful in the way that a home can feel
beautiful, and I think that's because the cleanliness and the
presentation are not the same thing.
A clean home is very important. I'm not here saying don't clean
your home. Obviously clean your home.
A clean home makes you feel calmer, it makes you feel more
organised, it makes a space more pleasant to be in and obviously
it's more hygienic. A room can be spotless and still
feel cold because clean is the base level.
It's not the whole story and I think this is where some people
get stuck. They think of the home as tidy.
It means it's nice, but when you actually look at that room,
sometimes there's just no atmosphere.
There's no lamps, there's no softness, there's no art, no
interesting texture, no flowers, no books, no sense of ritual and
no sense of how the person actually lives.
It's just clean. It's just ticked all the boxes.
It feels quite corporate, like an office, and often the
furniture itself feels like it was chosen to complete the room
rather than create a feeling. And I want to be clear here
because this is not about budget.
This is not about saying every piece in your home needs to be
expensive, because it absolutely doesn't.
Some of the best times are built with simple, affordable pieces
that you can find of marketplace or you've inherited.
But there is a difference between choosing something
simple with intention and just buying the most obvious basic
version of something because you needed it to take it off the
list. Like sofa done, coffee table
done, TV unit done, dining table done.
And yes, technically the room has all the furniture it needs.
But does it have warmth? Does it have texture?
Does it have scale? Does it have lighting?
Does it have any personality? Are the colours and textures
speaking to one another? Does it actually feel like you
like? If you were to sit in the room,
would you complement the space? That's the difference.
Because a home being complete is not the same as being a home
that's considered. And this is where the clean but
sterile home can fall a bit flat.
It has order, but it doesn't always have atmosphere.
It can be neat, but it's not really inviting.
It might be tidy, but it's certainly not layered.
It might be practical, but it's not particularly beautiful.
It's the perfect motel. And I think sometimes people
almost remove the very things that make a home feel good
because they associate those things with clutter.
They remove all the books and they don't bother with lamps.
They've got overhead lighting. They don't need a bowl, they've
got a cupboard. They don't need flowers.
And if they do, maybe they'll just get some fake ones because
they live longer and look, that home is clean, but it's just a
bit bare. And I always think there is such
a difference between a home feeling calm and a home feeling
empty. Calm has intention.
Empty just feels like something's missing.
So if you're listening to this and you feel like your home is
clean but it still doesn't feel beautiful, I would not start by
buying a heap of decorative objects because I would start by
looking for warmth, lighting, textures, and life.
And I think lighting is probably the first one.
I do also think this kind of house happens to a lot of us
that are renting and we're afraid to take that leap into
giving it more of a homey feel. It could be because we see the
space as temporary. We don't want to risk not
getting our deposit back. We live with someone that's not
our partner so we don't want to overly invest.
But there are things that you can do that can make the space
feel homely without having to go overboard.
So like I said, lighting is probably the first one because
overhead lighting can make even a nice room feel harsh.
Lamps do so much work in a home. A table lamp on a console, a
floor lamp near a sofa, a bedside lamp with warm shades,
even a lamp in the kitchen or dining area if you have the
space. Lamps in different heights on
the table standing, that's what you want.
You want the different heights so it travels throughout the
room. Then I would look at texture.
A neutral room does not have to be boring, but the texture has
to be doing some of the work. Linen, wool, timber, ceramic,
rattan, stone, leather, velvet, woven baskets, a soft rug, a
heavier curtain, a textured cushion.
These things add depth without necessarily adding clutter and
that's important because a lot of people here add more warmth
and think it means add more stuff.
It doesn't always mean more stuff.
Sometimes it just means better stuff.
Better lighting, better scale, better softness, better
materials. And if you're in a rental and
don't want to over invest, I think after lamps it would be
bed linen. Grabbing yourself some beautiful
bed linen in a texture that you love and making sure that you
have a minimum of four standard pillows and a long lumbar so it
looks plush. Perfect.
There you go. So the next thing that I'd look
at is kind of speaking to the seasonal aspect.
And again, this doesn't mean that you have to turn your home
into a jungle. It could just be a bowl of
lemons. It just could be a bunch of
flowers. It could be branches in a vase.
It could be herbs in a jar in the kitchen or the fridge.
It could be something from the market that just gives your room
a bit of life. There is something about the
natural elements that immediately make a space feel
less sterile. And then I would look at the
walls and the scale of the room. A lot of the rooms feel
unfinished because the walls are bare, or because the art is too
small, or because everything is sitting low and there's no
height. One large artwork can do more
than five tiny things scattered around a mirror.
I can bring light and scale. A taller lamp can lift the eye,
and curtains can soften a room and make it feel more complete.
In Myspace, I've got curtains that draw the eye up.
I've got sculptural mirrors that act in place of both art and
mirrors, and they bounce the light around.
So if you're feeling like you're in that first camp where your
home is clean but it still feels a bit cold, the solution is not
to abandon all cleanliness. It's just to add a little bit of
life. Not clutter, life, warmth,
texture, lighting, scale, softness, and a few things that
actually reflect how you live. Now let's get on to the second
camp. It's pretty much the opposite.
This is styled, but not actually put together.
This is the home where the person understands atmosphere.
They understand that a home needs layers.
They understand the power of a candle, a coffee table, book, a
vase and a tray and a good cushion and throw.
But the problem is that everything becomes styled.
Every surface has a moment. The coffee table moment, the
console table moment. The kitchen bench has a moment.
The bedside table has a moment, the bathroom moment.
The shelves have several moments.
Before you know it, the home starts feeling less like a home
and more like an amateur theatre set or like a TikTok for you
page home. Everything is performing.
Everything has an aspect of like a what's new page on a website.
And this is where I think we really have to make an important
distinction because there's a difference between clean and
styled. Because sometimes the over
styled home is not actually the cleanest home.
It might look decorated, but it doesn't mean that it feels
fresh. It might have lots of objects,
but that does not mean it feels calm.
It might have atmosphere, but that does not mean it's well
presented. And it could be a multitude of
like atmospheres and feelings too.
Like if you're borrowing too many reference points on social
media, like you're speaking to different styles and aesthetics,
perhaps throughout the whole home.
So it can kind of feel confused and like cohesion, which is, you
know, an easy thing to slip into if you're unfamiliar with an
overall style and theme and you're relying on Pinterest or
TikTok. You'll be like, oh, entryway.
Oh, I love that entryway master bedroom.
Oh, I love that bedroom. And then kitchen cabinet island.
Oh, I love that. And like, before you know it,
they're all little vignettes, but they're all actually
completely different. Like 1 was more traditional, the
other one was more beat century modern, and then the other one
was more eclectic and the other one was more dopamine decor, you
know? And let's not forget the more
stuff we have, the more things we have to clean.
So dust kind of happens. So The funny thing about these
two camps is that the clean home often needs more styling and the
styles home often needs more cleaning and editing.
They actually need to take a page from each other's book
because styling is not just putting things out.
Styling is knowing what to leave out.
It's knowing what to remove. It's knowing when the surface
needs space. It's knowing when the room needs
to breathe. It's the art of restraint.
And I think this is where people are getting styling wrong.
They confuse styling with accumulation.
They think I need a tray, I need a candle, and then I need a book
and then I need a vase and then I need an object and I need
something sculptural. And then I need a bowl and I
need beads and I need another candle.
And suddenly the room just has no hierarchy.
Everything is trying to be interesting.
Everything is trying to be looked at.
Everything is trying to say, look, I have style, but when
everything is a moment, nothing is a moment.
A home needs rhythm. It needs pauses.
It needs negative space. And I know negative space sounds
like a design term, but all it really means is that not every
inch of your home needs to be filled.
Not every surface needs an object, and not every wall needs
art. Not every corner needs a chair,
and not every shelf needs to be packed.
Sometimes the most expensive looking thing you can do is just
leave the space and let it breathe.
And the other thing with overstyling is that it creates
maintenance. If you have 7 objects on your
coffee table, you have 7 objects to dust.
You have to lift the tray, you have to clean under the tray,
you have to move the books, you have to refresh the flowers, you
have to deal with the candle wax, you have to straighten the
throw, you have to fluff the cushions.
And that's all fine if you actually want to live like that,
but styling has to be maintained.
You cannot just put things out and call it done forever.
And I think this is where a lot of homes become styled but not
necessarily well presented because the objects are there,
but the freshness is not. The intention is there, but the
editing is not. The home has been decorated, but
it hasn't necessarily been considered.
And I think this also comes back to we collect lots of bits and
pieces and we just add more and more stuff to the space.
So that thinking, hey, that tray that I got five years ago, is
that really feeling like me now? Like are we in the same space?
Like that's from like 3 rentals? Like ago when I was in like a
mid century modern apartment and now I'm in like a townhouse,
like workers cottage is a bit more traditional.
Like is this speaking the same language?
I don't know, maybe I need to get rid of that tray and replace
it rather than getting two other the trays and then just moving
that tray into a different room because that room needs a little
bit more stuff. Like I think the filtering out
and doing that seasonal declutter is super important
when it comes to finding your way and making the home feel
more intentional and styled and a good reflection of you and
where you're at. So if you do feel like you're in
the second camp where your home feels style but maybe a little
bit busy or chaotic, I would start by just removing.
Take away about 30% of the small objects.
Not forever, just as an exercise.
Remove a few of the tiny pieces, clear one surface, take one tray
away, reduce the number of candles, edit the stack of
books, take out the thing that's only there because you felt like
it needed something, and then look again.
Does the room feel calmer? Can you see the better pieces
more clearly? Does the furniture have more
breathing room? Does the styling feel more
intentional? Because often when you remove
the extra things, the good things start to look better.
That's restraint. And restraint is not boring.
Restraint is what makes taste feel confident.
Also might I add, if it's feeling empty, just give
yourself a little time. Sometimes things can feel
uncertain and you're like, oh, I don't know that you need to give
yourself a day or even just sleep on it.
Take the things, move it into another room, go to bed, wake
up, walk into the space and feel fresh.
It's like a Christmas time. You decorate the house at
Christmas, you pack it all away and you're like, Oh my God, the
house feels empty. You need to give yourself a
little bit of time to get used to it.
Just like a Christmas. You get used to it pretty
quickly and then before you know it, it's Christmas again.
You packed it away and it feels empty.
That's a good way to feel whether it feels right or
whether you've taken too much away.
The next thing I would look at is the function, because if the
styling gets in the way of living, it's not really good
styling. If there's nowhere to put a
drink on a coffee table, that is a problem.
If the bedside table is so starved that there's no room for
a glass of water or to put your phone to charge at night, that's
a problem. If an entry table has 3 candles
and a sculpture but nowhere to drop your keys, that's a
problem. If the surfer has so many
cushions that people have to throw half of them on the floor
before sitting on it, that is a problem.
A home should not be annoying to live in.
That might be the simplest way to put it.
A beautiful home should still work, and that is why the third
camp, the considered home, is the one that makes the most
sense to me. Because the considered home
takes the best parts of both. From the clean home, it takes
the order, the maintenance, the freshness, the clarity and the
calm. And from the styled home, it
takes the warmth, the texture, the atmosphere, the beauty and
the personality. And when those two things meet,
that's when a home starts to feel properly put together.
Cling but not sterile. Styled but not staged.
Personal but not chaotic. Practical but not bare.
Beautiful but just. It's still livable.
That is a considered home, and I think that's really where the
presentation comes into it because presentation is the
bridge between cleaning and styling.
It's not just whether your home is tidy and it's not just
whether your home is decorative. It's how all those things come
together to communicate care, comfort, taste and how you use
the space. A considered home does not feel
like someone is trying to prove anything.
They're not trying to prove that they're clean.
It also shouldn't feel like someone's trying to prove they
have taste either. It feels like someone has
thought about how they want to live.
And that to me is the difference.
And I think what also is a good thing to remember is that if you
feel stuck in your home, like you might not know exactly what
to do yet. You might not have the perfect
sofa or the perfect rug or the perfect artwork or the perfect
colour palette or layout. And that's totally fine.
But you can usually start by identifying what's holding the
space back, because I think most of us are naturally a little
better at noticing what we don't like then clearly articulating
what we do like. So you might be able to walk
into a room and not know the perfect solution, but you can
probably say. This room feels cold or
cluttered or flat. The room feels busy or
unfinished. It feels maybe a bit generic or
hard to use or has no atmosphere or too many little things.
It feels clean, but it doesn't feel warm.
Or it feels styled but it feels busy and not calm.
And that's actually a really good place to start, because
once you can identify what's holding the space back, you're
no longer just randomly buying things or removing things.
You're diagnosing the room. If the room feels cold, then it
needs warmth, so texture and lighting.
If the room feels busy, then it might need editing or negative
space. If the room feels generic, maybe
it needs one or two pieces with more character.
If the room feels flat, then maybe it needs height or
contrast or art, or a better mix of materials.
If the room feels impractical, then maybe the styling is
getting in the way of how you actually live.
So instead of asking what do I buy next, or what's my style?
Sometimes the better question is just what's stopping this room
from feeling good? That question can get the ball
rolling because a considered home is not built by guessing,
it's just built by noticing. You notice what's off, what
feels bare, too cluttered or annoying to use.
You you're noticing what you want to avoid or you always have
to move things out of the way. And then you can make one
considered change at a time. You can add the lamp, the three
small objects, or remove those three small objects, replacing,
you know, a random trinket piece that you bought from a big box
store because it just doesn't mean anything.
You can be getting the bigger rug because you always knew that
that rug was too small for this space anyway.
You might find, you know, a really beautiful mirror to stand
in place of that artwork or print poster that you printed
off because you just needed something in your dorm room.
But the point is, you don't need to know the whole answer before
you begin. You just need to know what's
holding the space back and start somewhere.
So like, let's start with the coffee table.
A2 cling coffee table might be completely empty.
Maybe it's spotless. Maybe it is practical, but maybe
it doesn't add anything to the room.
It's just a surface. An overstar coffee table might
have the tray, the three books, a candle of ours, a bowl, beads,
object, flowers. Maybe it's just too interesting.
You know, it looks good in a photo, but real life there's
just nowhere to put anything. So the considered coffee table
might have one great looking book or vessel with flowers.
Maybe it has a tray. If it's useful and there's
enough empty space to actually use the table, that's the
difference. It is styled, but it still
works. The same with the sofa.
The two clean sofa has chopped cushions like they're chopped to
oblivion and nothing else. Or it's like with a rolled throw
that's like rolled up like a towel at a hotel.
The over styled sofa is like 9 cushions, a throw placed in
every specific angle, draped over that.
It goes over down into the floor and it has pom poms on the ends
and nobody knows where to really sit.
The considered sofa has enough cushions that add comfort and
texture. They speak to the style of the
sofa as well. And maybe there's a throw but
you know, it's folded nicely on the end and it like hangs over
the arm of the sofa. So it still feels that you can
sit down without ruining the room because that's what's
important. Your home should not feel like
one wrong move and it'll destroy the styling.
Now, like another example could be the entryway.
A2 clean entryway might have a bare console and nothing else or
some like fake branches off onto the side.
And it's like, you know, not looking great.
Maybe it's tidy, but it feels a bit sterile and cold.
Whereas the over styled entryway might have a lamp and then a
bowl and then a candle and a vase and three books and a
sculpture. And it's all landing on a
console that's not big enough to hold all of this furniture.
And there's like a layer of dust underneath everything because
you haven't been able to clean it lately.
Whereas the considered entryway might just have one lamp, a bowl
for the keys, and a mirror to check yourself before you leave
to get out the door with maybe a few seasonal flowers or
something. It has function, but it also has
atmosphere. A bedroom is another good one.
A clean bedroom might have a perfectly made bed, white
bedding or not even. It could even be like it has a
pattern and then you've got a magenta cushion, just one
cushion because every bed needs a cushion, but it's like too
small and it's, again, it's magenta on like a geometric
duvet cover. And you've got bare bedside
tables with harsh overhead lighting.
And it always feels like a random mattress showroom or
budget motel. An overstyle bedroom might have
way too many cushions that are like chopped and way too many
throws, The bedside tables carved in objects, a chair with
a throw on it, a tray. And suddenly the room just feels
like a boutique hotel cosplay, like a bed and breakfast.
You know, it's like interesting how I think of accommodation
references, but I feel like it really gives you an idea of what
I'm talking about. Whereas considered bedroom just
has nice beautiful bedding, warm lighting texture, some practical
bedside space, enough softness and the room feels nice to sleep
in because again, the room has to work for the life that
happens in it. And then a kitchen is a really
interesting one too. Like a too clean kitchen might
have absolutely everything hidden away and the bench is
clear, but it feels like a rental inspection.
Or it feels like you've closed up shop.
Like a bakery's like, tidied and closed and it's empty, nothing's
been pulled out. Whereas an overstarted kitchen
might have open shelves full of objects and jars and boards and
vases and cookbooks and candles and flowers and ceramics.
There's so much stuff that doesn't that shouldn't be in the
kitchen, but someone ended up in the kitchen.
A considered kitchen has clean surfaces, a few beautiful useful
things like a fruit bowl, good tea towels, some nice pots and
pans that you really love. That are the ones that like stay
out and look if you must, a couple of flowers and branches
if it suits, but only if it suits the room.
That's where I think people need to land.
Not empty, not cluttered, just considered.
And if you want to order your home, I would ask yourself a
couple of these questions. Does this room feel clean?
Does it feel warm? Does it feel easy to use?
Does this room have too many things?
Does this room have enough texture, lighting, and life?
Is there anything just feeling a void or a space that I've just
put there and I need to really get like go through and just get
rid of? Is there anything in the room
that's also making it harder to live in, Like that thing that's
filling the space? Can you diagnose what the room
really needs? Is the room clean but cold?
Then we need to add warmth. If it's star but busy, we need
to edit. If the room's beautiful but
annoying to use, we need to simplify.
This is such a practical way to think about it because the goal
is not perfection and it's not about making your home look like
mine or anyone else's or a catalogue or a Pinterest board.
The goal is to present your home in a way that reflects your life
well, and I think that's the point people miss.
A nice home is not just a home that has been cleaned.
A nice home is not just a home that has been decorated.
A nice home is a home where the decisions just make sense.
Furniture makes sense, the lighting makes sense, the
objects make sense. There's just the right amount of
styling and it's clean, you know it's clean.
That's what makes a home field put together.
And honestly, I think This is why some houses feel good even
when they're not perfect. They might not have the most
expensive furniture, they might not have the newest renovation,
they might not have every trend, but they have care and it has
rhythm and there's warmth, there's restraint, and they have
a sense of person, you know, the person that lives there.
And that always is more interesting than a home that's
just clean or just styled. So if there's one thing I want
you to take away from this episode, it's this cleanliness
gives a home calm styling should give a home warmth.
Restraint gives the home taste and function gives a home,
meaning you need all four. Because if you only have
cleanliness, the home can feel sterile.
If you only have styling, the home can feel chaotic.
If you only have restraint, it can just feel empty.
And if you only have function, it can just fall flat because
they all need to work together. That's where a considered home
lives. And that to me is the difference
between a home that looks dumb and a home that actually feels
good. So this week, I'd love for you
to look at your rooms. You know your home 1 by 1 and
ask yourself, is this room clean, styled or considered?
And if it's clean but cold, you need to add some warmth.
If it's styled or busy, you need to take something away.
And if it's functional but flat, you just need to get in there
and add some atmosphere. And if it's beautiful but
annoying to use, well, we need to get into our routine.
And we need to simplify a few things because the best homes do
not feel untouched. They do not feel staged.
They just feel understood. And that's what we're all trying
to create. Thank you so much again for
listening to this episode of Home and Hosting with Louis
Bourke. If you enjoyed this episode, I'd
love for you to follow or subscribe wherever you're
listening. And if you have a moment, leave
a rating or review. It really does help the podcast,
which more people who love talking about homes, hosting and
making every day feel that little bit more considered.
You can also find me on Instagram and TikTok at Louis
Burke and over on the Journal at Louis Burke design.com/journal
for way more home and hosting and styling ideas.
And as always, thank you so much for spending the time with me,
and I'll see you very soon in the next episode.