Want to make your home more beautiful, and more comfortable? Rita Konig is your girl. She has worked as an interior designer and journalist for the past 15 years, both in London, where her design studio is based, and in the US, where she lived for six years until 2012.

Alongside her client work, Rita has just launched Rita Says, an online interiors destination designed to make decorating easier for those who want to do it themselves.

Edited by Rita, it is packed full of the suppliers and products that she uses for her own projects as well as practical “how to” articles.

Rita tells us: ‘Friends and acquaintances would always come to me for advice when doing up their own homes, and that eventually led me to start doing workshops at home for small groups at a time. I really enjoy the workshops. It is satisfying to know that people can come for the day and leave feeling more confident about decorating their homes.

Rita Says is really an extension of that. I found I was building this wonderful audience online – mostly thanks to Instagram – and wanted to offer more in-depth content than was possible in those little squares.

“The aim is to make decorating less daunting and more fun. It’s as simple as that, really.”

Here, she describes gorgeous papier-mache lamps, her enforced digital detox and her love of fine photography.

My favourite website is… when it comes to shopping for the home, The New Craftsmen is terrific. They’ve brought together over 100 makers who represent the best of their craft. They’re one of the partners for Rita Says, and I found it incredibly hard to select my edit of favourite pieces because everything they sell is so beautiful and original.

My favourite app is… rather boring! The ones I use the most and really rely on are ones that make life more convenient. So, things like BBC apps for news alerts and checking the weather; the Ocado app for the weekly shopping; and City Mapper, which is quite brilliant for working out how to get to places. I also love apps that mean I can download train tickets and boarding passes straight onto my phone – no more worrying about losing little bits of paper, which I am apt to do.

My blog of choice is… I do enjoy Ben Pentreath’s blog, both for his subject matter and his writing style.

My internet hero is… Ruth Chapman. What she and her husband Tom have done with Matches is awe-inspiring. They turned one little shop in Wimbledon into a multi-platform global fashion brand. And they do it all with such style.

My favourite Tweeter is… While I’m big Instagram fan, I don’t really “do” Twitter. I think I have to draw the line somewhere, or I’d never get anything done.

My favourite Instagrammer is… I follow a lot of antiques dealers on Instagram, as it’s a great way to keep up to date with their stock. I particularly like @avwantiques. There are also some photographers with rather beautiful feeds, such as @charlottebland and @kristinperers, who shot our recent images for Rita Says.

Social media allowed me to meet… I discovered a wonderful maker called Viola Lanari through Instagram. I went to visit her at her studio and fell in love with the incredible, delicate papier-mache lamps that she makes. She’s since made some lamps for a project we’re doing in LA, and I’m over the moon that we’re soon going to be stocking her lamps online at ritakonig.com.

The most worthwhile newsletter that I subscribe to is… Mine! We’ve just started doing a regular interiors newsletter as part of Rita Says You can sign up for it via our website. It’s a mixture of things we’ve seen and liked from across the web, mixed with design advice and gorgeous interiors.

My pet hate about life online is… There is so much that is great about life online – the support, the creativity, the inspiration. But, like most people, I do find it hard to switch off. Checking my phone is one of the first things I do in the morning and one of the last things I do at night – and my phone is never far from my hand in between. We have a little bolthole in Wales that barely has electricity, let alone WiFi or phone signal, and it’s rather nice to have an enforced online detox whenever we’re there.

My stand-out online memory is… I actually went to the wedding earlier this year of a couple who had met via Instagram. It was a wonderful and certainly memorable day – online by association!

November 2017