It has been a busy few months for me. When I last updated you all I had just completed a large interiors project, after the completion, the client and I had a walk-around on site – they were thrilled with my work, it’s always nice to finish a job on such a high!

In April I styled my very first large decorating shoot for Homes and Gardens magazine, alongside the fantastically talented (and hilarious) Paul Raeside, the team got to shoot out of London which was a nice treat, and at my friend’s beautiful location house too, St. Francis House near Cambridge. I’m thrilled with the images and can’t wait to show you all.. Look out for the July issue (out in June)!

It seemed for a while that I was working jobs back-to-back, especially after not having a proper break over Christmas. So in April my lovely man and I decided to go on a trip to Ibiza.. It was off season so a really great time to head there, the summer parties hadn’t begun so it was purely about relaxation. We enjoyed endless trips to the beach and discovering private coast lines, wondering amongst the local shops – where I sourced some fantastic hand-woven cashmere scarves, as well as catching up on some much needed sleep!

Once home from Ibiza, (sigh!!) I went head first into my next project. I’ve been working on a huge installation for an event which opens in June, I can’t say much more than this just yet but I have lots of creative ideas which I’m excited to share with you all – plus it’s at a very exciting location too! As well as this I also completed another fantastic shoot with the lovely Emma Lee for Fired Earth and their new tile collection, the images look beautiful so I’ll be uploading those to my website as soon as possible. I feel an admin day coming on….I have a few other jobs in the pipeline but it’s still early days so you’ll have to watch this space.

I am also slightly addicted to Instagram so do follow me as I am trying to document my life in images..http://instagram.com/louisagrey/ 

Catching my breath.

So even though I started the year with all good intentions I am still trying to implement them. There are no complaints but it has been super busy since LA. I have been lucky enough to have a great team around me. A lovely girl called Katie who came to Intern last year is back after deciding to relocate to London and has been in the studio for the last couple of months. Harriet has also been gracing us with her up and coming styling talent, along side the delightful Louie who has been with us too. Lulu and Lucy have joined the team to help with the final push of the Interior project.

I have just completed my largest Interior project to date and the time scale made it rather tight. I had three apartments to design and implement within a month. It was so busy but it has been completed and if I do say so myself looks amazing! I am heading there early tomorrow to photograph the spaces but it could not have been done with out the team all mentioned above. So a massive thank you too all involved!

So I am now on to my other projects and I am still to update my website, it keeps getting nudged down the list of things to do as there are so many exciting projects in the pipeline.

I am so excited about being able to update all my work.

Finally here are my images for the Homes and Garden shoot I styled and Ben Robertson. It was quite a thrill to see them at Heathrow airport when I was leaving for my job in Los Angeles.

The project came about quite quickly before christmas and suddenly I was working pretty much over the christmas period and this was the start of an amazing work trip. I have been lucky enough to travel for my work and that is one of the parts of it that I love!

Being given the opportunity to see how other people live and what inspires them brings new angles to my work. It was a fantastic place to work and LA is made for photo-shoots. I suppose it had never occurred to me that it is what the town is based on being Hollywood. So with intrepidation and pure excitement I ventured to LA for three weeks. It was incredibly full on and the time flew. I was able to do all the things I had wanted. I had created this tick list on the flight on the way over and I was going to start ticking as soon as I arrived.

The hotel was fab and we had a mini apartment, so in the mornings I could skype London for work. Do check out the Pali house in West Hollywood and I would recomend it if you are heading to LA purely for the location being so near Melrose the the shopping areas. I thought I would enclose a little shot of the main bar area which felt very comfortable with the leather seats and lovely patterned tiles. It was a great place to work and pass out at the end of our long work days.

This is the location we where lucky enough to be shooting at and the one thing I found with LA is the light is fantastic. The catering companies supplying us with food where out of this world. Each lunch time we would head out to the garden to find our daily menu being placed up in the tree or lent up against another random object. The lady’s who where making the food did little mad drawings over the menus and our cutlery was placed in an old black metal chest which houses mixed vintage cutlery. I found myself Instangraming all the time.

I was fortunate enough to have one of my old assistants Jenny Charlesworth who is now living there full time to show me around a few areas. So of course I could not wait to rummage at the Meat and Swap being what we know as a car boot sale, oh and of course I have brought back some good props for future shoots. I was dragging my suitcase back to London filled with treasures. I managed to tag on an extra four days at the end of the trip to venture around. We hired a convertible and headed out to Joshua Tree. It was stunning to have the space around us and it was the best way to see the desert. We ended up watching the sunset and driving for a super healthy salad.

I arrived back 10 days ago and I went straight back to work with one day off.  My list of jobs since I have returned seem’s to go on and on and once I have done one thing the next pops up. Now to update my portfolio, website and get prints done………..

Catching up.

So in the mists of having my boiler leak on my main computer system which I can tell you was a NIGHTMARE and on top of having several jobs on made life a bit harder. I am now (I think on the other side) with my new computer arriving tomorrow!! *YIPPIE* and feeling in the run up to Christmas that it can only get easier.

It has been a rather busy period as I have been shooting for the last 5 weeks on 5 different jobs. I have been seeing inspirations in all areas and found these lovely vintage painted fabrics which where upholstered on to a chair seat. Which has got me looking out for vintage florals. I am constantly on the look out for new ideas as I seem to get through so many so quickly.

I did finally have a Friday off and I was whisked away for a romantic weekend by the man and typically got the Freelancers dreaded once you stop you are ill syndrome. But we where staying in the most wonderful place called Belvidere Place which was so welcoming and we felt part of the family. The interiors are a wonderful mix of dark cushioning colours with a mix of vintage. We where greeted with a sloe gin on arrival next to the fire in the dinning space and I felt immediately at home. It felt rather dreamy and when I spotted the fine cobwebs catching the light on the pumpkins it was one of those memory shots that had to be captured.

I had to get up super early to head out and adventure so we went to Margate to look around the old town and I found the most beautiful 1950′s glass christmas decorations and with a lot of ohhing and ahhing I bought the lot much to the shop owners surprise.  I got super inspired and here is a selection of images I took for my note book of ideas from a variety of shops I could not walk past!

I am want to source as much pewter as possible as it shoots so beautifully and has so much depth to it. I had to take a snap shot of the graphic plate and cutlery image as it looks so decadent with the collections of cutlery bound together with string. I am now on full steam ahead to get a interior project finished before the holidays.

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Social media…

I am in the mists of prepping many jobs and after checking through my last posts yet again I have left it months before posting. It has been rather crazy with keeping all the social media going from Instagram, facebook,twitter and working. I have recently had a lovely girl called Katie from Melbourne (Australia) doing work experience with me for a week. This along side having two othr assistants is leading me to re-think my office set up as it is a squash! I have just had the most beautiful business cards designed and made. The gold leaf on the edge of the cards. I have had some great feedback when handing the cards over to potential clients, which has made me confident it was wise to invest in them. I have had a really busy summer. I had booked two months off but ended up coming back to work as there was work that was too yummy to turn down. So I cannot wait to post my images I just shot with Ben Robertson for Homes and Gardens for the February Issue. It was such a lovely shoot and I am thrilled with the images as they where just as I had pictured them. I have now finished my 7th memorabilia installation for Anya Hindmarch which is now in installed Tokyo. Another successful shoot for Fired Earth with Emma Lee on there new wallpaper collection which is out in the shops on the 20th October. It was such fun as each set was entirely different so I decided to make it as creative and editorial as possible.

I have another five shoots booked in before the end of the year and then I can finally take my well over due holiday which I am very excited by.

Time out

Woowzers how can nearly three months have gone by and now I am managing to start writing what I have been up to. I was immersed on my biggest project yet which was shooting for 5 weeks non stop with Graham Aitkins-Hughes . It was such fun and I only have to wait till August to be able to update my website so not long now. Then I headed to Dubai for some work meetings which I am excited by. In between my trip away I did another lovely job for Fired Earth which was all about tiles and I really enjoyed as it was so creative. I then headed off to Portugal for a friends wedding and got inspired by all the tiles in Torres Vedras.

I then headed to Areias Do Seixo which you must check out as it is featured in Mr and Mrs Smith for my friends wedding and my god how stunning was it! I do not think I will ever stay anywhere as stunning and I have seriously had the blues since returning to raining England. All the food is organically grown and cooked in the hotel and it was like a home from home. We took over the whole hotel for a long weekend and the polished concrete mixed with beautiful well thought out details made for a stylists dream. My bedroom had an outside bath and an inside polished concrete jacuzzi/bath, and also a walk in wet room.  The headboard was made from reclaimed wood and had some vintage collected hearts which where displayed randomly over it. All the rooms where all different and the owner who designed the space mixed the textures so well it never felt to cold or modern.

So today is my first day back properly in the office although last week I did decide to use my time to start clearing and organising my studio. After job after job and a lot of dumping in my work space it needed a good cleanse. It has also made me realise that when the weather gets better I am car booting a lot of the pieces in the studio, I am ready to clear the decks! I was seriously having problems getting in the space let alone work in there. So now I am officially back in the office and have a site meeting this afternoon, which I have to say with this weather I really do not mind working.