Mustard & Brick: Get the Umehs’ Look
As seen in our spring TV advert, take a closer look at the themes in the home of real family, the Umehs.
Jade and Hillary Umeh live in North London with their two little boys, Elijah, 3, and Ezra, 7 months. We first met the Umehs in our Croyden store, and knew we had to take a look around their house and see what kind of home they’d created with their Dunelm shopping.
Jade and Hilary both work in media and have agreed on a strong colour palette throughout their home, but they have different ideas about how best to light their rooms!
The Umehs love to use bold colour in their home, favouring accessories in rich, warming shades to perk up their versatile neutral walls. They start simple and build up the colour with a vibrant mix of orange and yellow – but never standard issue shades. It has to ochre or mustard, burnt orange or brick – something with a little extra flair.
Comfy cushions are used to add a pop of colour to the neutral sofas, with lots of texture throw in to make block colours a bit more interesting.
The same technique has been used in the bedroom by alternating paprika pillow cases with patterned but neutral bedding to make the whole décor pop.
It’s not just colour that creates a stylish contrast with the neutral-toned walls. The distinctive markings of giraffes, leopards and tigers can be found on artwork and mugs, breaking up block colours and giving their home lots of character.
An eye-catching gallery wall with family photos and prints happily coexists next to a fridge gallery filled with Elijah’s own creations, further breaking up the stone coloured walls and bringing more diversity to the colour scheme.
When it comes to furniture the Umehs’ like clean modern designs with the occasional nod to retro in a simple, mid-century inspired sense. The colour palette is kept calm with neutral shades, with graphic patterns on neighbouring accessories.
With their young family, comfort and togetherness is a priority for the Umehs. We love the way they’ve created a pocket of living room cosiness in their kitchen with a soft family-sized sofa for everyone to sit together, storage cubes for the kids’ toys, and a coffee table so Jade and Hillary can rest their mugs and Elijah can practise his drawing and dinosaur noises. This arrangement is great for encouraging family interaction when mum and dad have jobs to do!
“I spend most of my time turning off the big light and turning on the side light. I’m all about mood lighting.” – Jade Umeh
Like many of us, Jade isn’t a fan of bright ceiling lighting as she like the more cosy and comforting look and feel you get from floor and table lamps. The glow of this ambient lighting adds to the invitingly warm colours to create a sunset style scheme.