This 3-Colour Rule Will Change the Way You Style Your Home
Posted: 16 September 2025
Meet interior stylist, Lucy Gough
Lucy Gough has spent over 15 years shaping the way interiors look and feel, styling for publications like Livingetc, Homes & Gardens, and The Sunday Times Style, and curating imagery for brands from John Lewis to Dulux.
She’s now sharing the lessons she’s learned with thousands of aspiring stylists through her Interior Styling School.
But her advice isn’t only for professionals. It’s for anyone who wants to create a home that feels cohesive, thoughtful, and full of soul.
“The first and most popular course is How to Become a Professional Interior Stylist,” Lucy explains. “I wrote it for people who want to explore what it means to be a stylist, learn all the different types of styling jobs on the market, how to create a portfolio of work, how to create moodboards for clients, mock styling tasks and so much more.”
She’s seen her students take the lessons in countless directions, “The people who have completed my course range from creatives who want to try something new, existing stylists who want to try a new method of creating work, people who have gone on to become visual merchandisers, home stagers, brand stylists, retail stylists and some have used it as a foundation for an interior design degree. It really has opened up worlds for people that they didn’t know existed!”
For those more interested in styling their own homes, Lucy also teaches How to Style Your Home Like a Magazine, a course she describes as “an in-depth look at the aesthetic of the home and how to pull it all together.”
But when we asked her where most people should start if they’re feeling overwhelmed, she didn’t talk about furniture or lighting... she talked about letting things go.
“As boring as it sounds, you need to let go of things. We all own so much stuff, way more than we need. For a home to look styled and curated, you need a cohesive look throughout your home. I don’t mean everything has to match, but you need to think about your style and use it as a thread through your home.”
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And then she shared what she calls her favourite quick win, a method we’re dubbing the 3-Colour Rule.
“Look around your home—identify your favourite three colours that you use a lot. Then pack everything else away into boxes into your garage or spare room and take a look at how much more streamlined everything feels!”
Why does this work? For Lucy, it’s about clarity. By limiting the palette, your eyes immediately understand the room, and the clutter that previously distracted you disappears. “It’s almost like your home can finally breathe,” she says.
With all the projects she's got going on, we were bringing it back to basics, asking Lucy how she approaches styling a room...
“Whenever I style a space I think about the room in a series of vignettes—small groupings of things—it’s easier for your brain to process. If you style each one in a similar colour palette, then stand back and take a look, the room will immediately feel like one cohesive space.”
She encourages taking risks that infuse personality into a space, “I always style a room or an image with something old and something new, something high-end and something inexpensive—and always something second hand! It helps to make the space feel more lived in, loved, unpretentious and soulful.”
But for Lucy, the ultimate goal is for spaces to feel full of heart:
“A room or an image needs to feel full of heart for people to love it. Style a space with a piece of your heart and soul in it and people will always want to spend time there!”
Even though she’s now expanding her courses to include helping creatives teach online through her new program Create Your Online Course: Design, Deliver and Teach What You Love, her philosophy remains the same: start by editing ruthlessly, focus on colour, build vignettes, and mix high and low.
By the end of our conversation, it was clear styling isn’t about perfection or matching every piece, it’s about creating cohesion, clarity, and spaces that reflect personality.
And if you remember just one thing from Lucy, let it be this... find your three colours, pack away the rest, and watch your home transform.
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