That might be a beautiful book cover, a framed painting, or a one-off sculpture. When I’m at home, I want to see things that make me feel happy and inspired. Interior designer Pallas Kalamotusis of Studio Krokalia has curated her living room shelves with a range of objects Michael Sinclair If I have a bad day, the design books better watch themselves… I’ll save the psychotherapy for another day but who knew that swapping trinket bowls and vases on a coffee table would turn out to be so intrinsically linked to self-esteem and a flailing sense of self? If some people have a bad day, they chain-smoke 25 cigarettes. It’s something I can change, something I can control. It’s a small and perhaps shallow victory in a world where my time could be spent on something more meaningful, but for me, rejigging a room or a tabletop to look better or just different is a task that I find cathartic and comforting. When nothing else is going to plan, at least I can shuffle a few things around and make the room feel a little bit more like my own. That’s how it always starts out, then inevitably three hours later, I haven’t eaten anything or finished what I was meant to be writing but I have taken everything off the shelves, rehung them at a slightly different height (such is the joy of easily adjustable Vitsoe) and I’ve moved every book on every shelf, in search of the feeling of personal achievement. It’s the niggling feeling that if I stacked those books and moved those three candlesticks, it might be an improvement. These are triggers for that side-eye I give my bookshelves when I really should be working. ![]() I’m also incredibly indecisive and I have a very short attention span – I could love something one week and by the next, I’m sick of seeing it. Change breathes new energy into the room and stops it from feeling stagnant. My surroundings have a significant impact on my mood and I spend a lot of time here since I work from home, so I need some element of change. ![]() My penchant for rearranging is purely for myself. Of course, I don’t style my shelves or my coffee table for Instagram likes. ![]() That’s the reason why I mostly share photos of my coffee table (a large vintage lucite and glass number) and my bookshelves (a three-metre wall of Vitsoe that also houses the TV). Instagram has always been a visual CV of sorts but when you have two rooms in your entire flat and one of them only has a bed in it, the content options are somewhat limited. This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from. Nothing was mine and I didn’t know where anything was – it was deeply uncomfortable, even as a child. I remember going on family holidays in my teens and on the first day, while everything was still brand new to me, I’d secretly feel panicked or even tearful at the unfamiliar room around me. Perhaps it’s because I don’t own my home, so I need to create a personal connection and feeling of belonging. The instinctive urge to represent my personal style and my whole identity through my home has always been there, despite never owning a property. ![]() The problem is, we’ve inherited a grubby old carpet and clinical white walls, so our flat has never really felt like ‘me’. Renters such as Luke Edward Hall and Duncan Campbell have redecorated their Cotswolds house from top to bottom, but we never intended to stay in our Barbican flat long term and my boyfriend loathes painting, so I try not to fiddle with it too much. When you rent your home – as I do – there are limits to what you can do with it, aesthetically speaking. Guy Tobin's London house features shelves filled with art, books and ceramics.
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