By day I decorated and DIY’d and by evening I’d read interior design books and magazines- beginning to look at professional work and understand the fundamentals of interior design. I’ve always been environmentally conscious and this impacted on the choices I made for our home- ensuring that if we were buying new I understood the processes and materials that were involved in making the item. I sought out quality items that were built to last and mixed them with long lasting items that had already stood the test of time- antiques and vintage items that had been passed down from family or bought at auctions and antique fairs. This mix of old and new became my signature style and an environmentally consciousness approach became the core of my new business, Gringley Bespoke. My first client was a friend of a friend who visited our home, loved what I had done and asked me to help her create the same feeling in their new family home. From there I was asked to design a scheme and implement it in a new sales office- My first commercial project. By this point I had enrolled on a course at the interior design institute to ensure I had a more formal basis to my design knowledge and to develop my skills. It enabled me to learn alongside managing my own business which has been growing from strength to strength.