2018 Ideal Home Show: ‘Black Mirror’ Design Trends @ Olympia

I serendipitously found myself at the Ideal Home Show this April because technically I was heading to the Great Eat: Eat & Drink Festival which I had tickets for thanks to a friend. Now it is debatable of course which ‘show’ is more enticing and exciting to you depending on the state of your tummy at the time of visit. Ideally I would do both. Once I had stuffed myself to the gills, and was unable to look at cupcakes more than they could look at me, I decided to do my 10,000 steps at the Ideal Home Show.

This year’s Innovation Home is like an episode of Black Mirror – it has integrated technology from British Gas and Hive which monitors temperature and being in charge of your household devices from wherever you are. This is both good and bad of course. Do you really want to know what your dog is doing at 3 am when you are snorkelling in Australia or skiing in Sun Valley, Idaho?

A neanderthal like me would always remember the turn the lights off, unless I have senile dementia in my old age, in which case I would not have any need to turn lights on or off anyway. That is way I have been brought up. I have no need to use my phone to turn my lights off or to set them to a certain illumination level. It made me question our energy use and it made the public aware that a smart home can help cut down on costs.

I saw some exciting colour schemes one of which was by the interior designer Sophie Robinson. They are the colour schemes I would choose myself – jewelled, rich, deep tones with a strong sense of texture and vintage feel avoiding ubiquitous minimalist themes (a la Kondo, Hygge etc). I was really pleased to have had some eye candy after real candy at the Eat & Drink Festival. Colours to have stood out seem to be teal, pink, black and gold.