Floors & Rugs: warm ambience

The Icarus Jeans rug narrows the boundaries between fashion and design. Creative Italian rug company cc-tapis and Australian fashion brand P.A.M. have developed an experimental product merging artisanal hand-tufting with streetwear (www.cc-tapis.com).

FANTASTIC FLOORS

The addition of a rug can brighten up a room and inject a sense of warmth and ambience. Area rugs come in a multitude of shapes, sizes, textures and designs, and they can often provide the perfect solution for creating a focal point in the room. Rugs can visually anchor the furniture, especially if it is a large space, adding a cohesive solution if furniture items seem a little lost. Having textile underfoot always feels cosy and aesthetically comforting. Rugs also help with noise reduction, especially if the room is echoey, as well as dumbing down the sound of footsteps for those in the room below. In general, there are many benefits to adding a rug to a living space, and prices vary hugely depending on what it is made of and how it was produced. A useful rule of thumb is that the higher the quality the longer it will last, which is particularly important with rugs as they can take a lot of wear-and-tear, especially in high-traffic areas of the home.

The Flying Carpet by Fatboy can be used both indoors and outdoors as it made from dirt and weatherresistant recycled polyester. It has buttons down the side, enabling you to join multiple carpets together. Fatboy is available from Siesta Interior Design in C. Plaza in Nueva Andalucía (www.siestainteriordesign.com), Acoola in Pol. Ind. San Pedro de Alcántara (www.acoola.eu) and De Tropen on the Autovía del Mediterráneo A7, Exit 953, Vélez-Málaga, or you can buy online at www.detropen.es.

The hand-tufted Tango Runner by Kangan Arora for Floor Story uses bold colour for the equally bold pattern, and it is available in varying sizes (www.floorstory.co.uk).

Limited Edition’s exclusive Bauhaus Curves collection comes in four different designs inspired by drawings from the Bauhaus period. Each design is handmade in Belgium and comes in two colourways. The rugs are hand-tufted using 60 per cent wool and 40 per sent silk. Limited Edition is available from Alison BethellCollins Interior Design in Avda. del Mediterráneo, San Pedro de Alcántara (www.alisonbethellcollins.com).

Grove, from JAB Anstoetz Flooring’s Calma collection, has a natural pearl pattern that comes in an array of natural and relaxing tones, enhancing both classic and contemporary homes. JAB is available from Arte del Lusso (www.artedellusso.es) and Alison Bethell-Collins Interior Design in Avda. del Mediterráneo (www.alisonbethellcollins.com), both in San Pedro de Alcántara.

The hand-tufted Plastic Rivers collection by Gan, shown here in the Indus version, is from a collaboration with designer Álvaro Catalán de Ocón to raise awareness, through craftsmanship, of the global problem of plastic waste. The collection comprises four designs made with recycled plastic fibre, with each one providing a faithful and scaled representation of some of the most polluted rivers on the planet: Ganges, Yangtze, Indus and Niger. Gan is available through Siesta Interior Design in C. Plaza in Nueva Andalucía (www.siestainteriordesign.com), Acoola in Pol. Ind. San Pedro de Alcántara (www.acoola.eu) and A Cielo Abierto in C. de Negocios Oasis on Marbella’s Golden Mile (www.acieloabierto.net).

Pappelina’s Kim plastic rug in their Brick colour version can be used for both the indoors and outdoors. Pappelina is available from the Avoi showroom in La Mairena, or you can buy online at www.avoi.eu.

This beautiful carpet – made from 100 per cent natural, organic and ecological materials – adds a unique and ethnic touch to a living space. Available from Sybartum on the Mijas Road or buy online (www.sybartum.com).

The hand-tufted Prisma by Rug Society features striking contemporary geometric shapes inspired by the Bauhaus era (www.rugsociety.eu).

A UNIQUE PROPOSITION BY DANISH HOME STYLISTS

INTERVIEW WITH YOUR HOME STYLING OWNER MARTIN RANCE

Your Home Styling started up during the pandemic. Tell us more about this. Laura and I met in September 2019 and shortly afterwards we became a couple. We had a dream to start a business together offering turnkey solutions and interior design but, as nobody could leave their homes due to COVID-19, we started out as personal shoppers for customers, buying furniture from various retailers, putting packages together and installing the furniture into people’s homes who couldn’t be there themselves due to the restrictions. We even took photos and videos to help our clients see how their homes were progressing. We realised that this is something homeowners really appreciated so we continued to do this using our storage unit to keep our clients’ furniture safe and secure before installation. Since then, we have opened our showroom on the Mijas Road and, even though we have a wide range of our own furniture in the Your Home Styling showroom, if clients like a piece of furniture or decorative item from elsewhere, we will incorporate it within the design to create the perfect home for the budget set by the client, which is why we consider ourselves as stylists within the interior design world.

How did you become so popular in such a short space of time? I have been working here on the Coast within the furniture industry for some years and I really love to network. As I already had so many contacts here on the Costa del Sol as well as from my home country, Denmark, among other Scandinavian countries, it made sense to get in touch with them, informing everyone who I thought would be interested in the services Your Home Styling could bring to them. Of course, we are always interested in meeting new people and forging good relationships to create happy collaborations, and this is something we very much enjoy doing.

What is it that you feel your clients particularly like about how you work? I think our clients have really bought into our level of service. They trust us and have faith in what we deliver. Both Laura and I have worked tirelessly to set up solid foundations so that the business could have the best opportunity to thrive and I think people have soon realised that we were serious about our work and we go the extra mile for our clients. When we have been required to do so, we will work around the clock to ensure a job gets done properly and on time, which is something our customers have recognised about us – our efficiency, attention to detail and the fact we genuinely care a lot about their homes. Many of our clients have become our friends and we often meet up socially for dinner and a catch-up. When you style someone’s home, you have to really try to understand that person’s artistic style and individual living requirements, which naturally brings you and the homeowner closer together.

What does 2023 have in store for Your Home Styling? Many things but we are currently working hard on our website so that we will be able to show everything we have available in our showroom on the site, and customers can peruse the webpage and buy immediately anything we have available in-store. We have plans to offer our clients interesting international brands such as Bolia, Tine K Home, Skagerak by Fritz Hansen, Fritz Hansen, Houe and Umage. We also have plans to buy some lovely new items for the showroom in the early part of the year which, of course, we plan to showcase on our website also.

Mijas Road has many home decoration showrooms. What do you think sets you apart from the others? Even though our primary styles are contemporary, Nordic and boho (like many other showrooms in the area), we also gladly cater for other design preferences. We would also consider our prices to be generally more competitive than in other stores and, where other shops charge for an initial design proposal, we have chosen not to go down this route – thus making us more approachable to clients. We want to be considered as the friendly furniture company that offers a personal service with a high standard of service. We are very versatile and aim to help with everything and anything. That’s the major difference, and this makes Your Home Styling unique on the Costa del Sol.

Opening hours: Monday to Friday from 10am to 6.30pm and Saturday by appointment. Carretera de Mijas, KM 4.5, Centro Nórdico, Local 15, Mijas Tel. (+34) 623 261 843 info@yourhomestyling.com www.yourhomestyling.com