Laid-Back Style For City Dwelling
Easy living is at the heart of this spacious city property owned by Belfast interior designer Gary Dobbin who, with a keen for detail, prefers casual style over more polished showroom-type properties.
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aving recently redesigned his interior, he shows how you can combine vintage finds with fresh new décor to create a fabulous space which is both homely and stylish. “I have two Yorkshire Terriers, so I do need it to be easy living,” he says. “It’s important the dogs can jump onto the furniture. For me, it’s all about layering – linens and wools and velvets and leathers.” A fan of the New England colonial look, which has a more pared-back traditional feel to it and celebrates space, this is reflected in the overall style of Dobbin’s home. Downstairs, classic French parquet flooring runs throughout the living/kitchen areas and into the hallway, adding a sense of grandeur to the space, while also being inherently practical.
Picking the perfect palette
As someone who likes to seek out new treasures for his home while travelling, Dobbin favours a more neutral palette, so he can easily add accessories to his interior along the way. “My house is a mixture of things,” he says. “It’s all made up of bits I’ve collected over the years.” As he tells his clients at Gary Dobbin Interior Design, it’s important to find a strong base colour palette and then “feed different tones from it.” In Dobbin’s own home, the walls are all a warm grey tone, with accents of tapestry blue and lime green also picked out in the various rooms. “That thread of colour goes right through – from the blue front door throughout the whole house,” he says. “The walls are all that warm grey and everything else sits on top of that. I like a very neutral palette.”
Multi-layered living room
In the main living room area, which opens out into the kitchen, Dobbin mixes his fabrics to achieve that sought-after casual living
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