Meet the Team… Emma Deterding
What do you do at Kelling Designs?
A great question! I’m very hands-on as the Founder and Creative Director of Kelling Designs, so I try to keep all the balls in the air and be a good boss!
How long have you worked there?
I launched the company in 2006 and we’ve been here ever since.
What did you do before joining the company?
Before this, I ran a property management and lettings company called Contact London, which I sold in 2007 to Soames London. A large part of our brief was to carry out budget-smart solutions for redoing properties between rentals. Over the years, I had this nagging feeling that property management is actually a rather negative, unfulfilling business. It’s more about property maintenance, which is a rather thankless task. In time, more clients began to ask us to do their own homes, giving me the much more rewarding opportunity to enhance how people live and use a space, making great friends in the process. The rest is history.
What is your design style in three words?
Bold, colourful and timeless
Do you have a favourite design movement or era?
Not really – I think it’s our job to embrace them all and make the era or pieces from different aesthetic movements work for any given client.
What is the most valuable tool in an interior designer's toolbox (ie. colour, lighting, a measuring tape, even!)?
The ability to think outside the box. More specifically, it’s important for interior designers to understand the building process enough to know when the builder is telling a story and offer solutions to make things run smoothly.
Any favourite Kelling Designs projects?
Well, of course, we love our big projects like Spetchley Park; they are grand and bold and very rewarding. However, it gives me just as much pleasure to take a really small space which might belong to a young person and work on a design with a budget to achieve something really fabulous for them. Everyone deserves to live with good design and it isn’t beyond anyone’s budget if they are armed with the right information and the wish to create something gorgeous.
What is your most prized piece from KDLoves?
That’s a tricky question and at any given time it can be a different thing. But, I think I am most pleased with our bespoke desks. I love to open the drawer of an off-white desk and be greeted by the ping of pink. It brightens my day! Almost every element of the desk can be created bespoke to your tastes, from the drawer colour to the lining to the colour of the desk itself. The world’s your oyster at KDLoves.
Tell me a favourite anecdote from working at Kelling Designs…
When visiting a very smart house, I picked up a very beautiful expensive original french fauteuil chair to look at reupholstering it. We are great believers in upcycling and mending; I make a point of reusing as much of our clients’ pre-existing furniture as I can. I knew it was old, but was left rather aghast when I was left holding the two arms and nothing else! Luckily the client saw the funny side and reminded me that was exactly why we were there.
What are you known for in the studio (eg. makes the best cup of tea, sings along with the radio, etc)?
Drinking far too much Pepsi Max and asking what’s for lunch! As a studio, I try to encourage us all to eat healthily together in the dining room. We tend to wash it all down with a bucketful of chocolate afterwards, but the intention is good!
