INGREDIENTS LDN is a boutique lifestyle online store that sells soulful homewares, and first caught my eye in a magazine feature identifying the company as being a ‘One to Watch’. I was immediately drawn to the timeless warmth of the company’s style, their approach to cultivating a slower pace, the value they place on mindful consumption, natural materials, daily rituals and the thought that goes into creating a home that will evolve through time.
I had the pleasure of speaking to co-founder Nina Plummer to discover more about how her values, work and home are intrinsically entwined and how our space can be the key to cultivating a sense of uplifting wellness and calm…
Describe who you are and what you do.
I run a little online shop called INGREDIENTS LDN. ILDN is a homewares boutique inspired by ideas around slow living. The ethos behind our store is about a more thoughtful engagement with daily life.
In practice that means we offer a very mindfully curated selection of items made from natural materials. We focus on quality and craftsmanship, a neutral colour palette, timeless designs and moments that the objects in our store can facilitate. We also deliver a visual journal that not only serves to showcase our products in use, but also discusses thoughts that relate to a more thoughtful approach to everyday life.
Where is home for you?
I have moved around a lot in my life so home for me has never been associated with a country or a place. Instead, home was always wherever my loved ones lived. Home is anywhere in the world in the company of my husband. But I also get a feeling of arriving home every time I spend time with my family. I think as more and more of us become uprooted from an early age, notions of home are starting to have more to do with feelings than with places.
How would you describe your home?
My home has two personalities because it’s used for two very different functions. It is my place of work and my studio but it is also my place of rest. I would describe it as a calm, comforting space that is at once soothing and inspiring to me.
What does homecoming mean to you?
Home is the place where we are free to be fully and completely ourselves and experience the full spectrum of our multifaceted complexities. Homecoming is the feeling that we have arrived exactly where we belong, regardless of whether that arriving refers to a physical, mental or emotional place.
What is the first thing you do when you return home?
Because I work from home I don’t ‘return’ home on a daily basis. However in order to have very clear boundaries between my working day and the rest of my life, I always start my day with a long walk with my dog in the hills. In a way, this has become my commute and serves to create a distinction between being at home and being at work.
I end my day when my husband returns from work at which point we cook dinner together and catch up on what has happened in our days. The activity of preparing food together separates my home as my space of work from my home as a space of rest and serves to put us both into private life mode.
How do you unwind in your home?
My favourite thing to do is to play jazz music and have long deep conversation with my husband by the fire.
Do you have a sacred space or favourite place in your home?
My work desk is positioned in a space that has an outlook through the entire house. When I look to the left I can see through the hallway and living room and out of a large window at the sky and buildings to the back of our apartment. When I look to my right I can see out of another window into the city centre of Edinburgh.
How do you unwind in your home?
My favourite thing to do is to play jazz music and have long deep conversation with my husband by the fire.
Do you have a sacred space or favourite place in your home?
My work desk is positioned in a space that has an outlook through the entire house. When I look to the left I can see through the hallway and living room and out of a large window at the sky and buildings to the back of our apartment. When I look to my right I can see out of another window into the city centre of Edinburgh.
What makes a space sacred?
The feeling within it. Spaces that have a wonderful atmosphere that incorporate pleasing sights, sounds and smells can put us at ease and make us feel calm and contented. It’s that feeling that I seek out in all of the spaces that feel sacred to me.
How does the ethos of your sacred space play a part in your work?
The curation of our entire store is about helping to create a feeling of calm and contentment that can free up a little more room in our minds for contemplation and a more thoughtful approach to life.
Our home is completely intertwined with our store and so the creation of a physical space that would embody these ideas was an essential part of how we designed our home. How our home makes me feel serves as inspiration for how we run our store, and in turn how the store develops serves as inspiration for the direction our lives are unfolding, so the two are very much connected.
What practices or rituals do you carry out in your home or sacred space?
My husband and I prepare our meals together every night. Preparing healthy meals to music we love is a ritual we both savour. And our food always tastes so much better when we cook it together.
What are your home aspirations?
My aspiration right now is to actually get our home completed. When we bought our apartment a year and a half ago it hadn’t been cared for in many years and needed significant work. We live in what used to be an old Georgian town house and these old buildings need a lot of maintenance. We completely renovated the entire interior including moving walls to create spaces more in line with the original layout of the house and installing a kitchen and bathrooms. Because much of the furniture in our apartment is vintage or antique it takes a long time to find just the right pieces. While we are happy to wait, it will be nice when the interior is also finally finished.
If you could live anywhere in the world where would it be?
A home in the corner of the Seven Bridges in Amsterdam. The first time a saw that spot I was on a little canal boat at night-time. Each one of the seven bridges was lit up with those beautiful lights they decorate their bridges with and looking down all seven perfect tiny bridges I felt like I was looking directly into one of my dreams. We have been back countless times since then and the magic never fades. Maybe one day we’ll be lucky enough to get to spend some of our time living there.
Visit INGREDIENTS LDN to peruse the collection of curated soulful homeware and be inspired by the contemplative journal of meditations and reflections on slow living, mindful moments and creating an authentic home.
