Inside style experts' homes: Karlyn Evans - in pictures

I studied textile design at college and then spent 10 years living down south. I returned home to Glasgow with my family and kept being asked by friends to help them find fabrics for their homes, so I decided to set up my own interior design business RE-decorate. It's still small, but as my daughter grows up I get more and more time to work. I mainly do residential work, but have designed for a couple of hotels and cafes.
Photograph: Karlyn Evans

A lot of the homes in Glasgow are Victorian, and have great high ceilings, large windows and ornamental plasterwork, so it fits my aesthetic perfectly. People want touches of modernity but the houses lend themselves to traditional patterns. I would love to design a home with a single palette throughout, but I'm a sucker for different colours and there are too many paints and fabrics out there that I love. The spare room hasn't been touched yet, but in my head it's pink and green! Or maybe yellow ...
Photograph: Karlyn Evans

We were given this chair by my mother. I covered it in an animal-ish spot from GP & J Baker with purple velvet piping. I suppose it's my taste to take something basically traditional and give it a bit of a modern touch. Lots of clients look at this chair and it spurs them on to be a bit more bold. On the mantelpiece is a pot of porcupine quills and some mini sculptures made from vintage inch rulers, by Lizzie Thomas. The art is by a friend, Ross Hansen, who was at the Slade with my husband. He is quite the most skilled realist painter I've ever seen. The dove wall lamps were a salvage-yard find which lay unused for years, but have come into their own.
Photograph: Karlyn Evans

I have always loved blue and white china, but never really got round to collecting it, so I designed the family bathroom in an indigo blue paint from Sanderson and off-white colour scheme so that one day, when I do amass a blue and white china collection, it can go in there. The fabric for the blind is from Jane Churchill.
Photograph: Karlyn Evans

The sink sits on a piece of Honister slate (the last working slate quarry in the country). It sits on the old table from our cottage in Dorset which was not big enough for the new dining room but I could not bear to chuck out. The floor is reclaimed timber from a gallery near Edinburgh and looks like it has always been there. The towel hooks are vintage French enamel and are unusually long so the towels don't fall off. My daughter and I are making a great big shell mirror at the moment, but we ran out of mussel shells so in the meantime there is a mirror that's far too small.
Photograph: Karlyn Evans

Given I'm confronted by pattern and colour everyday in my work, it was necessary for me to design our room as a peaceful haven. However, this house is Edwardian and its old, slightly wonky walls would only have been highlighted by bright white so I went for a neutral pale sandstone palette, used a Sanderson fabric in duck egg blue for the curtains and painted the wardrobes in a much stronger blue (Prussian from Zoffany). The wallpaper is from Jane Churchill. The throw is a Missoni one from TK Maxx as are the lamps. After working as window dresser for a department store, I soon realised I could find last season's lights in TK Maxx. I always send clients there for a snoop in case they find something great. The secret is go with swatches of fabric in your handbag and only buy if they really are right.
Photograph: Karlyn Evans

When we moved into the house it was very 1970s. The previous owners had been there 50 years, everything was woodchip and it took days to remove. We painted the fireplace white, which has given it a new lease of life. (It was very very nearly in the skip but the budget would not allow for a new one.) I really wanted a round table as the room is a square. The table is from BO concept, and the chairs are IKEA. There are three doors leading off the dining room so this has become a roundabout for children on scooters. On the mantelpiece is a print by Rob Ryan. Four years on, this is the next room due for redecoration, as it has never been quite comfy enough and I think it's too white.
Photograph: Karlyn Evans

We took out a horrid peachy basin and loo and replaced the suite with a traditional white one. It's a tiny space but has disproportionately high ceilings, so I embraced this and put up a really dark silver and grey wallpaper. I love the mirror which was my first ever auction buy. People always comment on it, saying they would never have bought it, but seem to like it in our loo ...
Photograph: Karlyn Evans

Our hallway is relatively neutral but the paper is slightly opalescent so reflects light. It's from GP & J Baker and I have spotted it on telly in Upstairs Downstairs. I wanted it to flow on from the lounge, so it's a slight shift in palette but not abrasive. The lamps were bought from Christopher Wray. It's cold here in the winter and this is a semi-detached house so it was never really going to be an option to have stripped wooden stairs. The Axminster carpet is ideal as it has a slight stripe and lots of flecks of colour in it to hide all manner of dust and debris, and it's very warm and woolly.
Photograph: Karlyn Evans

I am a lover of vintage furniture. The filing cabinet was my grandparents' and I have designed my office round it almost entirely. The sewing thread box was a gift from my husband: I think he thought it would hold all my embroidery threads but alas I have far too many, so instead it houses my printer paper. My most recent buy was the 1920s roll top bureau, which was bought at the antiques warehouse in Glasgow. The rest of the studio has bits of reclaimed timber from a local church, the window sill is a piece from a pew where the hymn books would have gone, and the dresser is made from pew backs. Photograph: Karlyn Evans/Karlyn Evans