15th October 2026 | IN DESIGN ADVICE | BY SBID Share Tweet Pinterest LinkedIn Why the most important decisions in an interior are often the ones you never see When people see a finished interior, they naturally notice what is there. The furniture. The lighting. The materials. The colours. The joinery. All the things that can be seen, touched and photographed. As a designer, Pavlina Campbell, Founder of Pinterior Space, often finds herself thinking about something else entirely: all the things that are no longer there. The awkward circulation that was resolved. The furniture arrangement that didn’t quite work. The doorway that was in the wrong place. The beautiful material that was considered but ultimately rejected because it competed with everything around it. The ideas that looked wonderful on their own but didn’t belong in this particular home. By the time a project is finished, much of the work that shaped it has disappeared. And perhaps that is exactly as it should be. Good design often feels obvious once you see it. The room feels balanced. You move through it naturally. The proportions feel right. Nothing seems to be trying too hard. But achieving that simplicity can be surprisingly complicated. The finished room only tells part of the story One of the misconceptions about interior design is that most of the value lies in what is eventually selected. Which sofa? Which stone? Which colour? Which light fitting? Of course those decisions matter. But they sit much further down the process than people sometimes imagine. Before I begin thinking seriously about what should go into a room, I am usually thinking about the room itself. How do people move through it? Where does the natural light come from? What happens when several people use the space at the same time? What needs to be stored? What feels uncomfortable about the existing arrangement? Is the problem actually the furniture, or is it the layout? Does one space connect properly with the next? Sometimes what a client initially asks for isn’t actually the thing that will solve the problem. And I think this is where design becomes particularly interesting. It is not simply about answering the brief literally. It is about understanding the reason behind the brief. One decision is rarely just one decision Interior design has a slightly domino-like quality to it. Move one element, and suddenly several other things need to be reconsidered. Move a doorway, and you may improve circulation, but change the usable wall space. Change the furniture arrangement, and you may need to rethink lighting positions. Introduce a different material, and suddenly another finish that previously worked feels too strong. Even a decision that appears quite small can affect the room as a whole. This is why I rarely think about individual elements in isolation. I am always looking at the relationships between them. Does the dining table feel right in relation to the kitchen island? Does the scale of the lighting work with the ceiling height? Is there enough visual weight on one side of the room? Will that beautiful chair actually work when somebody needs to walk behind it every day? On a drawing, moving something a few centimetres can look insignificant.In the actual room, it may make all the difference. Pinterior Space Pinterior Space Experience changes what you notice I have always found this fascinating. Two people can walk into exactly the same room and see completely different things. A homeowner may notice the fireplace, the wall colour or an existing piece of furniture. A designer is often looking at the gaps between those things. I notice where the eye travels when I enter. I notice where movement becomes restricted. I notice whether a room feels uncomfortable because of its proportions rather than its decoration. I notice light, sightlines, ceiling heights, awkward corners and opportunities that perhaps aren’t immediately obvious. That doesn’t mean there is one correct answer. There rarely is. It means experience gives you another layer of information. Over time, you recognise certain problems earlier. You understand where compromises are likely to appear. You become better at knowing which decisions need to be made immediately and which should be left alone until the design develops further. Perhaps most importantly, you learn not to fall in love with every idea. Some ideas are beautiful and still wrong for the project. Being able to recognise that is part of the job too. Simplicity is rarely simple I am naturally drawn to interiors that feel calm and considered, and there is an interesting contradiction within that. The calmer the finished space appears, the easier it is to underestimate how much work went into achieving it. Restraint requires decisions. If there are ten different materials in a room, each one can fight for attention. If there are only three, the relationship between those three becomes incredibly important. The same applies to furniture, colour and architectural detail. Removing something can sometimes improve a design far more than adding something else. I often reach a point in a project where the question stops being, “What else does this room need?” and becomes, “Is there anything here that doesn’t need to be?” That shift is important. Because design isn’t necessarily about filling a space with beautiful things. It is about knowing which things deserve to be there. The value isn’t only in what is added There is another part of design that is almost impossible to photograph: the problems that never happen. The socket that wasn’t positioned behind a piece of furniture. The door that doesn’t collide with another door. The dining chair that can actually be pulled out comfortably. The storage that was considered before the room was built rather than added afterwards. None of these decisions is particularly glamorous. Nobody is likely to walk into a completed home and say, “What excellent circulation.” They simply experience the space as comfortable. And I think that is one of the reasons the value of professional design can be difficult to explain. When it has been done well, many of the decisions stop drawing attention to themselves. The thinking disappears into the result. Pinterior Space Design is not the same as decoration Decoration has enormous value. Colour, textiles, furniture, art and objects bring character and emotion into a home. But design begins before that. For me, it begins with understanding. Understanding the building, certainly, but also understanding the people living inside it. How do they actually use their home rather than how they think they ought to use it? What frustrates them? What do they need more of? What do they never use? Do they want a home that encourages everyone to come together, or do they also need places to retreat? These conversations often influence the design far more than an inspiration image ever could. The finished interior might ultimately look simple. The route to getting there usually isn’t. Perhaps the best design doesn’t announce itself I sometimes think one of the greatest compliments a space can receive is when somebody walks into it and simply feels comfortable. They don’t necessarily know why. They don’t need to. The proportions work. The lighting feels right. There is somewhere intuitive to put things. Movement feels natural. Materials relate to one another without competing. The room supports what is happening within it. That feeling is not created by one brilliant decision. It is usually created by dozens, sometimes hundreds, of smaller decisions working together. Some are creative. Some are practical. Some involve solving problems. Others involve deciding not to do something at all. Most will never be visible in the final photographs. But they are there. And in many ways, that is where I believe the real value of design lies. Not simply in the things we place into a space, but in the thought, experience and judgement behind them. The finished interior is what everyone sees. The thinking that made it possible is often invisible. About Pinterior Space We are Interior design practice specialising in residential interiors. We are based in South Cambridgeshire where we work closely with our clients in a collaborative process to produce creatively unique, practical and beautiful spaces. Visit Profile If you’d like to feature your news or stories on SBID.org, get in touch to find out more. If you’d like to become SBID Accredited, click here for more information.