How to Decorate Your Home Like Interior Designer Banjo Beale

Banjo Beale has taken the interior design world by storm. Australian-born, the ‘wily stylist’ now lives on the Isle of Mull in Scotland after a few years travelling the world. The variety of influences is clear in his design. His gorgeous interiors combine antique furniture with natural textures and play with light and space to create rooms that are full of life.

If you want to emulate Banjo Beale’s interiors in your own home, below are a few ways you can do so.

Curate vintage furniture

One of the ways Banjo Beale achieves such character in his interiors is by sourcing vintage furniture. Not only is this a sustainable way of furnishing your home, it also brings a timeless, classic feel. Unlike some contemporary furniture that can go in and out of style, a lot of vintage pieces will have an appeal that lasts for years. Often, vintage furniture will have been built to last, and as it ages it just has even more character.

Another benefit of finding vintage furniture is that it will be a unique piece only found in your home. Finding the right vintage furniture will let you express your individuality and personal style, rather than going for a mass-produced piece.

Reuse and repurpose

Continuing the sustainability theme, another way to emulate Banjo Beale in your own interior is to reuse and repurpose. For example, in his own Dining Room, Banjo has a lampshade that was once a chicken coop.

There are many different ways you can repurpose and upcycle materials and old pieces of furniture to make unique items for your home. You can take an old dresser and turn it into a chic bar just by sanding it down, adding a new coat of paint and perhaps some new handles. If you’re updating your internal doors you could recycle your old ones by turning them into a coffee table just by sanding and painting the door and fixing legs to the underside.

Use natural textures

Banjo is known for incorporating natural textures throughout his interiors. Whether that’s through adding leafy green fauna or finding furniture made from natural materials, bringing the outside in can bring a sense of life to a room.

There are a variety of ways you can use natural textures in your own interiors. You could opt for rattan and wicker furniture or look for clay and stone ornaments. You could think outside the box and look for sustainably made and sourced materials – in one interview, Banjo mentions his leather chairs made from discarded pineapple leaves. You could also go for oak internal doors for a classic way to bring nature to your interiors.

Tell a story

Banjo is a self-proclaimed storyteller and uses his interiors to really tell a story. You can do this in your own home by thinking about the setting – what’s outside the room you’re decorating? Do you live on the coast, in the Highlands, in an urban hub? What pieces can you incorporate into your home that help to tell the story of its surroundings?

This could be with the furniture pieces you source from local markets and antique stores. You could tell a story with the art pieces you decide to display in the room. When telling a story through your interiors, you should consider all the senses – sight, sound, smell, and touch are all important when thinking about a room’s design. You should also consider the mood you want to convey, such as whether the room is designed to be peaceful and restorative, or energising and rejuvenating.

Pick the colour last

A stand-out feature of Banjo’s interiors is the use of colour. From deep navy blues, minty pastel greens and rich tangerine orange shades, Banjo won’t shy away from colour. However, he says that he tends to choose his colour palette last. Instead, he focuses on curating a collection of pieces for a room and then standing back to see what colour ties them all together.

This can be a great way of giving yourself some freedom when picking items for your room. Instead of restricting yourself to one colour palette, you can pick pieces that you love. Often, your personal taste will mean that you pick items that already fit together. You can then take a look to see what sort of paint colour you can use as the finishing touch.

JB Kind has a huge collection of internal doors to help you create your dream interiors. Try our door visualiser to see how our range of doors could look in your home.