Chippendale’s fluent, natural and sophisticated style developed after the promotion of his furniture and interior designs in “The Gentleman and the Cabinetmaker’s Director” in 1754. Chippendale continued to make iconic contributions to the field of interior design until 1790. His furniture came to be manufactured as far afield as Philadelphia in the USA.

Chippendale drew on three key interior design inspirations for this work – namely French, Asian and Goth. In the USA, Chippendale’s work was interpreted as a re-envisionment of the Queen Anne interior design style. His furniture was often heavily ornamentalised on the feet and uppers, with beautiful heritage-inspired scroll tops on taller units. Yellow Birch and Mahogany were often used, undersupport was rarely employed, and the rears of seated furniture were covered with plush fabric or otherwise left as shaped wood, perhaps as tessellated piecework with ornamental sculpting and Asia-inspired cross-strips. To round out his own personal interior design style, Chippendale would also include delightful finials and varnished shellac features.

Enthusiasts and professionals alike were very taken with Chippendale’s work, lauding him as a master London cabinetmaker and a household name of eighteenth-century furniture-focused interior design.

Harewood House is a popular Leeds tourist attraction, located about 4 hours’ drive from Central London. The famous building features a magnificent collection of Chippendale library furniture that was originally ordered during the 1760s. The interior design style reflects Chippendale’s ideals throughout and showcases his focus on both form and function.

Today, London’s interior designers are often called to reconstruct period rooms in traditional mansions or luxury residences. Often Chippendale furniture will play a major role in such interior design concepts. Chippendale-inspired furniture designs such as those of Henrietta Spencer-Churchill may also be ideal for certain settings. However, the fresh lines of many Chippendale pieces also lend themselves to contemporary interior design concepts – many interior designers will use some of the more extravagant Chippendale pieces to offset some of the more frosty and unforgiving modern furniture elements.

Six main lighting tools are considered foundational by established interior design consultancies. These are down-lighters, up-lighters, wall-washers, decorative lighting, colour and control. Many London interior design consultancies will preferentially think of these mostly in terms of mood and results – from daring highlights to soft textures – instead of as hardware and installations.

Down-lighters are often set back into a false ceiling, although some interior design consultancies will prefer to install them on walls. These units will direct light downwards, and can be focused by the design team as necessary, perhaps to illuminate the floor or a favourite contoured bookcase. Most interior design consultancies recognise that this type of light is very sharp and will generate somewhat intense shadows, which can be a refreshing contrast to the occasionally dreary London weather. The most popular units are always available in narrow beam designs, which are best for highlighting certain features. Interior design consultancies will sometimes opt for a wide beam model instead. One nice technique that I have seen used in a few London residences is to create an array of shimmering ceiling lights with wide-beam downlighters. This is appropriate when the interior design consultancy wishes to create a more general, ambient light, but with a fabulous designer feel.

Up-lighters wash the ceiling with light, and the ceiling then serves as its own lighting fixture, bouncing relaxing and general illumination back into the living area. Interior design consultancies will use up-lighters to create an engaging feeling of openness and upward motion when the ceiling is painted a dark colour, in which case the reflected lumens will be low. Up-lighters in London are often either free standing or wall-mounted, usually above head-height to eliminate dazzle. One great technique that I once saw used by a well-known London interior design consultancy was to incorporate a fabulous up-lighter that was recessed into the floor as a central feature, creating drama and powerful contrast for a cove and elongated column.

In the next article in this series “DeLIGHTed by Design,” I will continue explaining how interior design consultancies rely on the six core lighting tools.

So far, so good. Sofas have come so far and sofas are so so good. We can’t get enough of them, especially at Christmas, or Hanukkah, or Hogmanay, or whatever your cultural group fest. Guaranteed delivery by “whenever” you want implies the multimedia advertisements.

Sofas are definitive: they define who we are and they define who we want to be. The quickest way to lift a living room is to buy it a new sofa. It changes group dynamics. It changes groups. Your pack is defined afresh. Sofas make a design statement in the reception area of a customer-focussed company. The statement is of futuristic opulence: buy from us and this is the comfort you will be able to afford. ‘You’re worth it.’

Sofas have iconic status in western culture. Move over the Keeler chair with the naked model posed elegantly on view: that was the observer mode. Sofas are participation mode: we sit together. Sofas provide furniture for the post-modernist age, where responsibility for each other within the pack is key. “We relate therefore I am” is a reframed descartian idiom. Nonetheless, if you still ache after observer status, there are the sofa’s little sisters available: tub chairs or cubes where you can be cocooned or perch by yourself.

Pre-eminently, sofas receive each and every one of us as we return to base camp. Sofas know and celebrate who has membership of the group. This is the mission of the Simpsons as the series intro transcends the message of the episode to come. The Groening sofa has many guises, but it’s always there for the Simpsons pack. Sofas are for members of the family or extended family pack. There are many to choose from. Strangers used to be consigned to the parlour, now they are given, or choose, the solitary chair.

Group members return at evening from their various daily activities. This may be the hunter-gather mode of profession, business, retail therapy or job seeking. Sofas are the place for the recovery/reflection mode as we renew our energies for the tomorrow. Sofas prepare us for the next foray into action hero mode, hunter gatherer mode, or whatever your pack animals are into.

Sofas slow you down. This is a serious function in our frenetic time-stretched lives. You climb into a sofa and finally out of it. As the sports car gets you low slung before speeding away and reviving your engine, the sofa slows you down and gets you low slung before relaxing your engine. Both sports car and sofa require grace as you consent to their embrace. The sofa may succeed of course in relaxing you completely such that sleep takes hold of you. If so, then let’s hope it’s a bongo couch you’re on.