I have a confession to make. After a year and a half of being a contestant on The Block, it is only now that I finally get my first opportunity to sit down and get my head stuck into learning the core principles of interior design. It’s so funny that Alisa and I have been designing winning rooms on The Block without learning the principles of interior design.
People think that we know what we are talking about because we have that natural ability to put a room together. Alisa and I have never pretended that we are interior design gurus, but hopefully after completing our course with the International Institute of Home Staging we will be well on our way.
I remember one of the first questions we got asked when we got onto The Block: Sky High was, “What style would you say describes you?” My response was, “Ummm, we don’t really know. Let’s call it the Alisa and Lysandra Style.” Looking back we had absolutely no idea about anything, we didn’t know the difference between contemporary or modern, for crying out loud.
Yes we have done two seasons of The Block, but the rooms that we produced were by complete instinct, not because we had an idea about what we should and shouldn’t be doing.
I sat down on my laptop and opened my first module, Design Skills 1. By the end of this module I am finally able to describe the core principles of design and how they vary from one another. It’s all well and good for Alisa and I, to be able to put a room together and make it look good (and even have people exclaim ‘Wow!’ when they walk in the room), but if we are serious about our career as designers, it is paramount that we learn the core principals of design.
The first module covers the core principals of size, scale, balance and proportion. Completing this module makes us excited about what more we could produce when we combine our experience of two seasons on The Block with the knowledge we have gained so far in our IIHS course.
Alisa and I have been very fortunate to have Naomi Findlay, principal of International Institute of Home Staging, take us under her wing as a design mentor. Bring on the next module I say!
About Alisa and Lysandra:
Identical twins Alisa and Lysandra are best known as winners of renovation and design show, The Block. After winning The Block: Sky High and being crowned the Bathroom and Kitchen Queens, they were asked back as favourites for a second series, The Block Fans VS Faves. They have now launched their new stylish online homewares store, Alisa & Lysandra Collections.
