You know what you like
and you want a home with a point of view of its own. You’re interested in mixing pieces from different places and finding things you won’t see in everyone else’s home, but figuring out how it all works together can be another matter. That’s where Shapes For The People comes in.
I offer color-led decorating and design guidance, bridging the gap between handing the whole project over to an interior designer and figuring it all out yourself. We work together, with you staying involved and me bringing the design knowledge and practical help to move things along.
We might choose paint colors and wallpaper or find furniture that works with pieces you already love. Sometimes it’s about making room for the things you want to keep, or changing the layout so everyday life feels a little easier. I bring fresh ideas and practical design advice, helping you make the decisions without taking them out of your hands.
We can spend a couple of hours working through things in an in-home consultation, with written notes and next steps for you to take forward. Or we can work together over time, developing ideas and making decisions as the project progresses, with me researching options and sourcing pieces between meetings. That ongoing help can focus on a particular room or extend across your whole home. Either way, your taste and how you want to live are where we begin.
Hi, I’m Madeline
I’ve always been very aware of the idea of home.
I grew up with five siblings in a full and happy house that squeezed and stretched at every edge to accommodate us all. When I was seven, my parents converted the attic of their bungalow to make a room each for me and my sister. Although we were originally devastated to be separated (we cried!), it didn’t take long to realise that this was actually a brilliant idea. A room of one’s own and all that. The room I was given was teeny tiny. We could just about squeeze a bed in by cutting into the roof, which required a swift stoop every time you wanted to get in or out. But I loved it, and I was eager to make it my own. I asked my not-so-handy dad to put some shelves up, and after fashioning a couple of hooks for my hats by bending paperclips and taping them to the underside of one of those shelves, he later replaced them with two proper hooks from his collection of things-that-might-come-in-handy in the garage. I didn’t know it then, but I was building a home for myself - a tiny little nest full of my things. Finding ways to display them and make room for them. It was intuitive and instinctual. That little nest became my sanctuary in a home brimming with the hustle and bustle of everyday family life.
I found myself repeating this process again and again: in university halls, in a student house where I painted the walls and spent hard-earned money at Ikea to make it feel less temporary and more like a reflection of me; later in apartments in Germany, then Brooklyn, where we painted bold colours, built walls, and made room for a growing family. Long evenings and weekends followed, Tearing up floors, stripping paint, laying tile, building shelves, often with an industrial fan humming outside the children’s room so they wouldn’t wake. And it continues still.
Building a home is a labour of absolute love. To me, home should bring a sense of ease and belonging. It’s where you should feel the most settled, sure, aligned. That only happens when the people who live there are represented. In the art, the collections, the souvenirs, the heirlooms. In the handwritten notes, the concert tickets, the memories. Today, that instinctual way of making space, paying attention, using what’s there, trusting your eye — is how I work with clients. I offer color-led decorating and design guidance that helps people uncover what feels right to them and building out a home to reflect just that.