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About to start decorating a house? Looking for a little inspiration? Clear your calendar, settle into your couch and grab your remote!

Hollywood has big budgets and with these budgets come stunning locations, expertly-designed sets, gorgeous architecture and anything else a top production company could ever need to reel in the big bucks. The Block’s Carlene Duffy shares some absolutely magnificent movie interiors to inspire the interior designer inside us all.
 

1.    Something’s Gotta Give

This was the movie where every viewer fell in love with Erica Barry’s (Diane Keaton) Hampton’s beach house. It became the standard to which every woman held her Hamptons-style home makeover.

Creator, Nancy Meyers, is in fact renowned for impeccably-designed movie sets and she visualises, in detail, the look of her character’s homes as she develops her characters. 

I’m personally a little tired of the Hamptons look in its traditional form. I think because it’s so heavily documented, but I can certainly see the appeal of this warm, soft, classical interior scheme. 

The high raked ceilings, wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling built-in bookshelves, plush soft furnishings, tufted upholstery, shaker style kitchen, wall molding. It’s all here for anyone wanting inspiration for a traditional Hampton's look.

2.    The Devil Wears Prada

I’m a bit biased here because I am the sucker that gets hooked into any New York-based movie because I LOVE the place. 

In The Devil Wears Prada, the office of Runway Magazine Editor, Amanda Priestly, (Meryl Streep), is the envy of every office worker. Of course, any space receiving as much natural light as this office is already one step ahead. 

Classical design features, such as the wall moldings, and splashes of art deco and antique furniture are juxtaposed beautifully against a very modern, streamlined, smoked-glass office desk.

However, it is the perfect example of a well-done gallery wall that really is the talking point in this space with a well-balanced collation of framed fashion photography surrounding an ornate mirror. This is exactly how I like to see photography framed and hung; with wide, white matts and fine frames, hung gallery-style.

3.    The Intern

Another Nancy Meyers movie, The Intern, opens in the converted warehouse office of a booming e-commerce fashion start-up company run by Jules (Anne Hathaway). It is just impressive with soaring high ceilings, old white painted brick walls, black framed glass doors, and abundance of natural light. 

Later in the movie, we see Jules’ Brooklyn brownstone terrace, which is just the ultimate example of my kind of style; layered, eclectic, unpretentious, warm, interesting and the perfect combination of classical contemporary.

It’s the kitchen though that is the stand out, with the shaker-style cabinetry painted in a sophisticated and interesting shade of blue/grey, which I can’t even put my finger on and framed with full height subway tiled walls and open shelving.

4.    Ghost

I’m throwing it back now to Ghost (one of my favourites as a kid), which is a perfect example of warehouse loft-style living. And Ghost, I think, was one of the first big movies to showcase the look. 

When a home has good foundations (high ceilings, an open floor plan, good natural light etc.), it can warrant being furnished quite sparsely because there’s a good chance we aren’t looking at the furnishings anyway. And of course, this space is home to a potter (Demi Moore) because every warehouse-style loft should house an artist of some kind, shouldn’t it?

5.    Californication

Ok this is a bit cheeky, because Californication is an American television series, not a movie, but I feel like it would be wrong to omit this one based on a technicality.

The Californication house, in which the house has come to be known, was designed by Southern California-based architect,  David Randall Hertz, FAIA Architect. 

The house epitomises contemporary California living and makes good use of natural, recycled materials, showcasing beautiful use of besser block and concrete and timbre throughout.

The house is in fact a compound of four separate buildings, connected by three glass bridges surrounding several courtyards with a lap pool in the centre. It is the large and many windows though that really make this house showstoppingly spectacular.

Inspired by all things Interior Design? Check out the stats and facts about this fascinating and creative career path here.