Designer Molly Mahon reveals how to design your home with confidence

Block printer Molly Mahon has crafted daring artisanal textiles and wallpapers for the last decade – but there is no greater time to follow her advice than the present. Molly’s creations are a cocktail of ethical designs and quintessential 20th-century British block printing, which result in rainbow-infused pieces. 

If we’re going to take interior design tips on pattern, prints, and color from anybody, it is Molly, so, of course, we were taking notes on everything the textile extraordinaire had to share. 

Speaking recently to Homes & Gardens in our podcast, The Well-Crafted Life, Molly shares how to build confidence in interior design, and similarly, how to bring courageous patterns into our homes. 

How to build confidence in interior design – according to Molly Mahon

So much of interior design is about confidence, but Molly Mahon suggests we should all take courageous risks – whether we’re from a creative background – or completely new to the interiors world. Firstly, we need to ‘embrace the personal.’ 

‘A lot of people can find it really hard to dig deep and find out what it is that they really like or what they really want. We are all so worried about what people think… There are quite a few places that you can go to or look at that are [decorated] in so many different styles. It’s about finding the things that make your heart leap with joy,’ Molly explains. 

‘If you walk into a particular house and it doesn’t do it for you, then don’t do that in your own house,’ she adds. 

How to be courageous with pattern 

Part of unleashing your confidence in interior design involves drenching our schemes in patterns that spark excitement and create a joyful space – but as Molly suggests – this courage comes with time.  

‘[Bold patterns] have something to do with confidence,’ Molly declares. ‘When I started out, a lot of my prints were quite small. I was very cautious, and a lot of them were one color. However, in my latest collection, there are much bigger flowers and much brighter colors involved.’

‘When I look back, it goes [back to] the idea of confidence. I’ve been blown away by people purchasing my fabrics and wallpapers. It has allowed me to grow in my confidence, and it’s got bigger and bolder as I go, and it [feeds] into a lot of things,’ she adds. 

We’re ready to follow Molly’s expertise on how to mix patterns in a room and draw inspiration from the settings that excite us the most – one pattern at a time.