Flamboyant Art Deco Mansion - home of Siobhan Murphy aka @interiorcur

ART & DESIGN

Flamboyant Art Deco Mansion - home of Siobhan Murphy aka @interiorcurve

Posted on: Jun 17

Welcome to ART IN THE WORLD OF INTERIORS - a cycle of features were we will be visiting fabulous homes around the world and their owners who are passionate about art. Each home we will visit is unique, with it’s own style & character. From castles, through to period homes, cottages, flats, new-builds, terrace houses and semis, from cities, towns, villages and country sides across the globe… I would like to invite you to join me in this inspirational journey, where we will explore different ideas and styles in interior design and we will look at various ways of displaying art in your home.

Today’s visit is to a home like no other… Once you’ve seen it, you will instantly recognise this style anywhere. Think about home of a flamboyant Great Gatsby, colourful, filled with pattern and art in all shapes and forms. To top it up it is a large Art Deco Mansion like no other.

Come on in and let’s meet the owner...

Hello, can you tell us about yourself and what you do?

My name is Siobhan Murphy, I live in Castleford, West Yorkshire with my husband Nick and my ragdoll cat Benji. We live in a beautiful art deco home that was built for a lady GP in 1936 who used it as her practice for over 20 years. I studied fashion and accessories and have a real love affair with colour and pattern. I love the creative process of designing and making something, turning something plain and bland into a riot of colour and theatre.

What inspires the décor and styling of your home?

I can take inspiration form a variety of sources, a room design can start with a colour, a wallpaper sample or something random like a beautiful silk scarf or a place that I have visited. For example my master bedroom was inspired by a trip to the Beverly hills hotel on our honeymoon 5 years ago, I had always had a huge love for the Martinique wallpaper and the interior designs of Dorothy Draper so I know I wanted to create a botanical inspired bedroom with a nod to the Beverly hills hotel too.

I have a huge collection of interior design books – I’m currently reading ‘Making Living Lovely by the 2 lovely gays’ and it’s a great read filled with amazing tips. I also read a lot of interior design magazines and of course Pinterest and Instagram are a huge source of inspiration – in fact sometimes I feel so overwhelmed with ideas that I don’t know where to begin. I do love a mood board and most of the time I start with a mood board to define my colour palette and style for the room – these are not set in stone though and I like to tweak and redefine the scheme as I am going along.

How Do you choose art for your home?

I get a lot of my art inspiration from people that I follow on Instagram. I like to mix one off original oil paintings and acrylics with prints, postcards and posters. Even though we have moved from a 1970’s semi detached house to a 1930’s Art Deco mansion I have actually kept quite a few pieces of art including my Lush Eclectic prints which are now in my reception room. It sits alongside an original oil painting of me depicted as a 1930’s gangsters moll!

I love portraits of women and my home is filled with beautiful, strong portraits of women including a portrait of the lady doctor who had chatelaine built.

How to arrange gallery walls

I think the most successful gallery walls are the ones that feature a variety of artwork. A mix of vintage and new. Old masters style paintings against neon and graffiti. I also like texture and a variety of shapes and sizes, colours and frames. I never plan my gallery walls I just start with one piece centrally then work my way around ensuring there is enough tension between the pieces to give the gallery wall a cohesive look.

How I choose frames and Where I get frames from?

I’ve got friends with a framing company in Leeds called Flagship Framing that have a beautiful selection of frames and they also help me decide on colours and shapes, with some of my art we have even double framed it to provide maximum impact. It makes such a difference having your art professionally framed and I would always recommend buying less but spending more on the framing. Another tip is getting special art glass that reduces glare and is really good when taking photos for your Instagram!