Interior guru Megan Morton on lockdown's silver linings

In her debut Domain column, Australia-based stylist, author and interior instructor Megan Morton, whose work has been featured in ‘Vogue’, ‘Vanity Fair’ and more, considers the good bits of all this time spent at home.

Our homes have been worked to the bone. Hammer and tong, doubling up and tripling down. Home as school. As satellite office. As refuge. As hospital. As workshop. As sourdough bakery. As gym.

As we find ourselves on the other side, I wanted to share some decorative silver linings you may or may not have had the head-space to consider during lockdown.

Bye-bye open plan

Many of us are trying to physically reinstate the walls we built with our imaginations during lockdown. Just as pool filling was probably the highest-growth small business of 2007, I suspect 1800WALLSUP and the like are experiencing a boom.

Let’s face it, open plan was a decision made by a savvy building group, subbing out a cost-cutter with a perceived lifestyle improvement.

I think we can all agree that there can be something in between a strict Victorian division and today’s three-in-one dining, living, WFH, bedrooms and amenities.

No one needs to see everything, everyone, every day, all the time. (If you don’t want the wall to be built in hard form, I’ve recently done a beautiful heavy linen on an S-track as a demi-barrier).

The new game of what to reveal or conceal gives us endless opportunities for more peace, quiet, light and mess management.

What makes life worth living?

I found that my attention bias was screwed with during lockdown. Maybe yours was, too?

If I wasn’t paying attention to certain things while simultaneously ignoring other things, I flipped between flat-out denial and acute concern. It made leaving the house or speaking to others awkward, which was OK back then given we couldn’t do either.

In between all of this, I refined my list of what makes me deliriously happy, triggers for happiness and things recently made tolerable.

I’m sure you’ve done your own list too, but can I suggest you take it from a mental list to a physical one?

Make it your top/frequently read message in Notes on your phone, or if you are an analogue learner like me and are still addicted to a biweekly visit to Officeworks, go all the way and have it laminated as a bookmark.

What not to buy

I like to see what it is that people consider surplus in the design landscape. This is why I study auction house collateral as if it was the Da Vinci code.

It also affords me the chance to pick up things I missed out on getting the first time around, but mostly it helps foresee trends and work through any overarching design counter-reactions clients might have.

Pinterest is a slave machine and what’s trending today is tomorrow’s auction listing. So, if you want to come out of lockdown with a quality-over-quantity outlook and see what not to buy, look at the glut in your chosen category.

This is a scalable exercise because it works from European auction houses (international auctions are happening day and night over on invaluable.com – just please try not to bid against me, I’m “MM” on most sites) all the way down to Facebook Marketplace (where I am close to being shadow-banned because some of my listings were so good, Facebook deemed them false!).

Keeping in with the Joneses

Neighbours being neighbourly were the golden moments of these past two years. Life is richer when we keep in – not up – with the Joneses. I hope there’s a good souvenir book being written of all the gestures, both mini and trophy-standard, experienced during lockdown.

And for those of us who didn’t win the neighbour lottery, these Domain pages are for you. I am sure we have all developed new post-pandemic Spidey-senses which, along with empathy and care, we can put to good use.

What was your lockdown silver lining? Instagram @megan_morton meganmorton.com