#Podcast : On the Sofa With Interiors Journalist Becky Sunshine

In a time of bloggers, #ADs and press trips, one might be forgiven for questioning why there’s a need for interiors journalists at all. After all, if you live in a house, you can write with authority about interiors, right? Well, not quite.

Home bloggers are passionate about interiors, without a doubt, though can often be sporadic and introspective. What I’ve noticed with interiors bloggers over last decade is very much a waxing and waning of enthusiasm as renovations come and go, as homes get ‘finished’ and as life overtakes relatively brief dalliances into a world some writers inhabit every day.

Trained journalists who inhabit this world full time not only know it inside out, but also have the benefit of consistency and encyclopaedic knowledge. They’ve seen trends come and go, understand processes, recognise passing fads, know the giants of their craft and can spot emerging talent at 100 paces.

They got skillz, honed over many years, a craft too often dismissed in this age of easy keyboard access. For our Sofa Workshop On The Sofa podcast series, I chat with Becky Sunshine, freelance writer, editor and moderator. She talks about how she trained as a journalist, starting out working at a trend forecasting company in fashion, but rapidly gravitating towards interiors. Tempted by the Milan’s Salone, unsurprisingly.

Becky’s work is to be found in the coolest of publications, both in print and online, featuring interviews with the best designers around. She chats to style gurus like Lee Broom for Wallpaper..

And she gets to snoop around the most wonderful homes and interview the homeowners about their inspiration…

Above: Photographer Alexander James/Observer

Training as a journalist teaches you about how and when to ask the right questions, a skill Becky uses to great effect when moderating talks and events with experts in the interiors field. It’s not all writing anymore, in the fast moving, multi-skilled world we live in.

Something I notice about Becky’s Instagram feed is that she presents us with her take on events, rather that just the stock PR shots being pushed forward. Her inquisitive nature searches out the unusual and the forward thinking. It might not be your style but feeds such as hers step Instagrammers out of their comfort zone and away from over-styled, trend led home shots.

Her training and professional knowledge also means her Insta-candid captures of homes or architecture visited are accompanied by condensed bursts of information. Concentrated nuggets which actually teach me something. That’s a professional at work.

I actually wish I’d know more about Becky’s life before I’d chatted with her, that sounds weird doesn’t it? Because now I’ve stepped into her world, I have even more questions!