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Angela Scanlon reveals the decorating disaster that 'still haunts' her
As part of our interview series, My Happy Home, Angela Scanlon talks Irish ‘good rooms’, banishing beige and the decorating disaster that ‘still haunts’ her.
Angela Scanlon is an Irish television presenter who regularly hosts The One Show and has her own podcast Thanks A Million. She presents BBC Two’s Your Home Made Perfect and Your Garden Made Perfect, which use state of the art virtual reality technology to help people visualise their spaces before renovating them.
Angela lives in north London with her husband and two children.
What makes you happiest at home?
AS: I’m happiest with the back doors open, a busy garden – with some sunshine ideally – and cooking with the radio on. I like a busy, bustling home.
Tell us about your childhood home
AS: I remember us having a 'good room', which is quite an Irish thing I think. It was basically a living room that nobody ever went in that was reserved for if a priest came round, or a funeral or maybe Christmas time – like the good china. It had mustard pelmets on the window, which sound absolutely disgusting but at the time I thought were fabulous, and really comfy couches in a similar fabric – again overkill, but somehow it worked.
I’m one of four girls, so it was a busy house. We were on rotation sharing bedrooms when I was a child so I don’t really remember the décor, but I do remember in my teenage years painting my room a bright turquoise. It was a little dormer room so the turquoise was everywhere, ceiling to floor – it was disgusting and still haunts me!
When you get home, what is the first thing you like to do?
AS: I like to take my shoes off and head straight to the kitchen. We don’t have an open-plan living space; our kitchen and dining area are together and the living room is separate, so I often retreat there after the bustle of the kitchen. I love putting on the fire, sitting back and looking out onto our little garden.
Which room do you spend most of your time in? How did you decorate this space?
AS: It’s a cliché but the kitchen is definitely the hub of the home. We’ve got a porthole window and a big French country farmhouse table which I got from Vinterior – it's probably slightly too long for the space, but I love the idea of having a ton of people around it.
It’s the only room in the house that isn’t covered in colourful things. We’ve got black and white pictures all over the wall – a mix of Perry Ogden prints, funny pictures and a big calendar that’s ugly but practical. There’s a gorgeous colourful rug underneath the table, which feels quite homely. The table is usually covered in vases of whatever flowers have been plucked from the garden on any given day and a ton of cookbooks – it’s very lo fi.
Describe the view outside your bedroom window
AS: We are very lucky because our small garden backs onto a field, so we essentially look out across green fields and big mature trees – the kind of stuff that we go wild for on Your Garden Made Perfect! It’s so unusual in London to have that sense of space behind you, and it’s really lovely.
The first thing I do when I wake up is tie the curtains as far back as I can so that we get as much of the view out of the window as possible, and we’ve recently bought a new bed that’s a bit higher so you can look out from there. You can see the seasons change, which I really love, especially when the cherry blossom is shedding.
What would we find in your bedside table?
AS: Currently, a Matthew McConaughey book, a LED face mask – I’m habit stacking and combining it with morning meditation – a family picture, some palo santo and sage which I burn a lot, multiple eye masks, lip balm and a pint of water.
There’s usually a nice candle too – it’s a Tom Dixon one currently that I was given as a present. I have so many scented candles! At the moment, I love Diptyque's 34 Boulevard St Germain and Amber. I used to go for rose scents and had rose candles at my wedding, but now I prefer woodier, more masculine tones like tobacco and oud.
What’s the best decorating advice you have ever received?
AS: Only buy things you love. Interiors have become as much a way for us to express ourselves as fashion, and now we’re refreshing and changing our homes all the time in a way that people didn’t before.
I don’t necessarily believe in following trends, but I think if you buy things you love, even if they don’t entirely make sense, you’ll keep them forever. I often pick things up when I’m travelling so that they have an emotional value to me, and I also try to buy good quality pieces whenever possible. It’s very easy to be seduced by flatpack furniture and quick fixes but it doesn’t last; I try and find pieces I need on Gumtree, eBay and Facebook Marketplace, which can sometimes be free, rather than getting a cheap new item.
What is your most treasured possession at home? Why is it so special?
AS: A marble table that we handpicked when I was heavily pregnant. It’s lived in our home since I had my children, and they now stand on top of it and watch TV in the centre of our living room. It’s a square table with mitred edges, so it just looks like a big cube of pink marble with beautiful creams and browns through it. It’s a piece that we invested in and no matter where we live, it would find a home with us.
What’s the best home bargain you’ve ever snapped up?
AS: A gorgeous bog wood table for £250. It’s a huge, curly piece of fossilised wood trimmed into a tabletop with legs added. When I looked for similar, they were so much more expensive.
What would top your list for the worst décor trend?
AS: The 'all beige' thing that’s happening right now. I feel like the Kardashians are responsible for it – I think they’re fantastic women and brilliant business minds, but what is the beige décor all about!? Maybe it’s a backdrop for people’s Instagram, but to me it feels so boring and inexpressive. In the future we’ll probably look back on it with the same disdain as we do an avocado toilet now.
If you could have a snoop around anyone’s house, whose would it be and why?
AS: Joanna Lumley’s. I think she’s the type of person – and this is a compliment – who doesn’t care about how she’s perceived. I think there would be stories behind everything in her house – a connection to a memory, job, her travels or a person – rather than it just being a wash of beige.
This is why Your Home Made Perfect is the ideal show for me: I go into somebody’s house and immediately want to ask them questions about everything in there. I love when a house tells a story rather than feeling sanitised, like someone’s replicated something on a Pinterest board with no connection to who they are.
Are you green fingered?
AS: I love gardening – although this year I missed my window for planting things as I was travelling to Ireland quite a bit to film a chat show, so when I was home I wanted to be with my daughters rather than in the garden.
I have some perennials that grow back each year, but at the moment the garden doesn’t look as great as it has other years. We have lots of herbs growing and our neighbour has the most amazing rose bush that thankfully they’ve let grow over into our garden, which is beautiful.
Your Home Made Perfect returns on Tuesday 20th June at 8pm on BBC Two. Catch up here.
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