DESIGN LESSON
Does plenty of pattern mean plenty of clashing? Not if you take Richardson’s Patterns 101 crash course – as illustrated by her own nursery. (How many fabrics are mixed in this room? Eight!)

1. Use the largest, boldest pattern as a jumping-off point. In this case, that’s the gorgeous floral on the armchair.

2. “Starting from that, find other fabrics [both patterned and solid] with similar colours,” she says. Here, she’s mixed the cream denim covering the loveseat with red and cream stripes on its armrests, the red and pink check on the bolster pillow, and the star print on the footstool.

3. Go heavy on the main hues, light on the rest. “I like a monochromatic scheme, so this room reads mostly as red and cream; the blues and yellows fade into the background.”