Art in the Home: A Conversation with Kate Allamby, Studio Heim Interiors
We sat down with Kate Allamby, founder & principal designer of Studio Heim Interiors, to talk about one of our favourite subjects art in the home. Kate is an Edinburgh-based interior designer known for creating spaces that feel deeply personal, considered, and effortlessly lived-in. We asked her everything, from where to start if you've never bought art before, to whether handmade pieces have a place in a high-end interior. Spoiler: they absolutely do.
Art as a Starting Point, Not an Afterthought
Plan: For someone who's never really thought about art as part of their home, where do you even begin?
Kate: Art should never be an afterthought. It's often what can really make or break a room. At Studio Heim, we always treat it as part of the overall vision from the very beginning not something to fill walls once everything else is finished. It can set the tone for a space, anchor a colour palette, or bring in a feeling that everything else builds around.
The most important thing is that it has to be personal. We can guide on colour direction, scale, or overall vibe, but it still has to speak to the client emotionally. Once people understand that art isn't just decorative that it's something deeply tied to how a room feels it naturally becomes an essential part of the process.
How Art Changes the Way a Room Feels
Plan: There's something really personal about choosing art for your home. How does a piece actually change the way a room feels day to day?
Kate: It's such an incredible way to update a space without changing anything else, and I think people often underestimate just how much impact it can have. It's something that's in your eye-line every day, even when you're not consciously noticing it, so it quietly sets the tone for how a room feels to live in.
In practice, it can soften a room that feels too structured, add depth to a neutral scheme, or bring familiarity and personality into a newly finished space. It's one of those elements that can completely shift the feeling of a room in a very simple, considered way.
Does the Art Lead the Room, or Does the Room Lead the Art?
Plan: When you're working on a scheme, do you choose art around the room, or build the room around the art?
Kate: It really depends on the project. Some clients come to us with existing art collections, and in those cases the art absolutely becomes the starting point. We build an interior scheme completely in tune with it, everything from colour direction through to furniture scale can subtly respond to those pieces.
If there isn't existing art, I'll introduce suggestions as part of the design process. Because art is so personal, these are always presented as a guide in terms of colour direction, tone, and overall feeling rather than something prescriptive. Either way, the aim is always the same, it should feel completely integrated. Never like an afterthought, but like it has always belonged in the space.
Does Handmade Art Have a Place in a High-End Interior?
Plan: The 'create your own' culture has exploded recently. Do you think there's a place for personal, handmade pieces within a high-end interior?
Kate: Yes, absolutely. I always love when clients have a story behind a piece of art. It brings something really personal into a scheme that you simply can't buy off the shelf. I had a client who had been experimenting with art himself and created some really beautiful pieces. He wasn't completely sure about them at first, but I loved them and we ended up using them throughout the entire design scheme.
Sometimes it really doesn't need to be perfectly polished to be beautiful. Our tagline at Studio Heim is "spaces that feel like home", and that applies to artwork just as much as anything else. When something carries meaning, it naturally elevates a space in a way that feels effortless and completely authentic.
This is exactly why we started Plan. The idea that creating your own art, building your own frame, stretching your own canvas, mixing your own palette, can result in something that feels just as elevated and intentional as anything you'd find in a gallery. And it carries something a bought piece simply never could: the fact that you made it.
The Space Where Art Makes the Biggest Impact
Plan: If you had to pick one space in the home where art makes the biggest impact, which would it be?
Kate: I think it really needs to be somewhere you naturally pause and have a moment to take it in. One of my favourite spaces is a stairwell or hallway. In my own home, the stairwell is the first thing I see when I leave my bedroom, so it's lovely to be greeted by a piece I really love at the start of the day. These transitional spaces are often overlooked, but they shape how you move through a home and how each space feels in relation to the next.
That said, high traffic spaces like kitchens and living rooms are brilliant for art in a different way. These are the rooms you live in most, so the artwork becomes part of your daily rhythm and energy. Less a final detail, more something that quietly anchors the space.
Where to Start if You're Not Sure
Plan: For someone scrolling right now wondering where to begin — what's your one piece of advice?
Kate: Start with something you genuinely feel connected to, rather than trying to fill a wall. Even if it's small or unexpected, that emotional connection is what makes it work long term. You'll quickly start to understand what you're drawn to and what you want to bring more of into your home.
Whatever it is you've got to love it. That's what makes it last.
Ready to Create Something You Love?
If Kate's words have sparked something, this is your sign to start. At Plan, we've designed a kit that gives you everything you need to create your own framed canvas art at home, from the frame to the canvas to the paints, without the overwhelm of figuring it out yourself.
To see more of Kate's work and explore her approach to interior design, visit Studio Heim Interiors at studio-heim.co.uk