Home: Interior designer Natasha Rocca Devine shares her secrets 

A professional interiors look needn't cost a fortune, writes Natasha Rocca Devine in her new book. We roadtest her advice 

Irish interior designer and author Natasha Rocca Devine.

Making lists is underrated. I happen to love them and the satisfaction of ticking off each item as I accomplish it. 

I even have a mini-blackboard on the kitchen counter for chalking down my shopping list which is later transposed to a handbag-size notebook in anticipation of a supermarket trek. It’s even subdivided by category ie, fruit and vegetables, dairy, cleaning stuff, listed aisle by aisle from the entrance.

To all of you now throwing up your eyes at this level of detail, let me tell you it saves so much time and stops me from visiting other aisles to buy stuff I don’t need like crisps and discounted Christmas decorations from the middle aisle.

Taking time to plan meticulously means you achieve the space of your dreams.

Maybe it’s partly because after a day tied to the laptop scribbling digitally, I love the process of writing by hand, so when a new interior design book landed on my doorstep filled with pages of worksheets, list-making pages and tick boxes, it was enough for me to set aside current avid study of my new collection of delectable Yotam Ottolenghi cookbooks Santa Claus brought, to throw myself prone on the sofa, pencil to the ready, cup of tea to hand, and a deep dive into The Step-By-Step Guide to Designing & Styling Your Own Home by Natasha Rocca Devine.

The Step-By-Step Guide to Designing & Styling Your Own Home, by Natasha Rocca Devine. Published by Orla Kelly Publishing. Hardback €24.99, paperback €19.99.

It’s a step in a new direction for the Dublin-based designer who has 23 interior design awards to her name, and strong sustainability credentials since the early days of her career, having worked and trained with former US Vice-President Al Gore as a Climate Reality Leader. She’s also about to start filming a new television series, The Climate Challenge, to be screened later in the year on the Virgin Media platform.

But it was during maternity leave in 2021 that Natasha got stuck into this book-writing project, responding to what she felt was a gap in the market which, she says, “I wanted to fill by combining my design and journalism training, skills and experience.”

What she’s now produced is an interior design guide to, she says, “help you discover your own design personality, provide you tips on how to create your dream home or simple ways to fall in love with your existing home”.

Mood boards are the vision you have for your room to which you add colours, furniture and textiles.

First up you have to figure out whether you need interior design, interior staging or interior styling. For those caught in the fog of industry terminology, Natasha de-mists with definitions of each one, providing a diagram for those strong on the visual side of things.

But a fundamental problem for the amateur home interiors enthusiast (and I’m glad to see she’s addressed it early on) is confusion as to their own style, so up comes a multiple-choice quiz, luring me in with some irresistible tick-box-filling opportunities. It turns out I’m an equal mix of mid-century modern and classic contemporary, and I’d say that’s pretty much spot on.

Then it’s on to nitty-gritty and here’s where anyone who’s embarking on a large-scale project involving architects, builders and contractors but handling project management themselves, can learn how to read plans, make mood boards, track quotes, and keep note of names and sources of materials.

Natasha also offers a planning tip. “I recommend taking a course in SketchUp or working with a specialist in SketchUp or another 3-D visual programme. This will help you explain your ideas to contractors and they can then work off the plans and visuals.”

A physical mood board rather than a digital version appeals to more than our sense of sight and can include tactile objects like fabric and wallpaper samples.

For the less labour-intensive interior styling projects, Natasha says, “Begin your styling project by creating a general mood board on digital platforms such as Instagram or Pinterest, or even using magazine cuttings. You could also create specific mood boards for each room or for different features, for example, lighting, paint colours.”

Regardless of the size or complexity of your plans, you wouldn’t go far wrong closeting yourself away with this book to do some homework, especially if you were among the many who developed a taste for home interiors projects and gained more confidence in lockdown when there was time for trial and error, and TV was throwing home improvement shows at us like billy-oh.

It will take time to work your way through, and, admittedly, it’s at the end of that process where the real work of implementing your design project starts, but it’s likely to feel less daunting as a result.

• The Step-By-Step Guide to Designing & Styling Your Own Home by Natasha Rocca Devine, Orla Kelly Publishing; €24.99, hardback, €17.99, paperback; available for pre-order mid-February
• Instagram.com/natasha.rocca.devine/