How to Make a Space Tasteful

With Design Week Lagos wrapping up, and Compound Africa releasing its first publication on spaces that authentically reflect African taste, it feels like the right moment to talk about what makes a home feel considered. Photo: Keegan J. Checks Taste is often treated as something you either have or you don't. We don't believe that. Taste is a practice: a habit of noticing what you love, choosing deliberately, and being patient enough to let a space become yours. It has very little to do with budget and everything to do with intention. Here is how we've come to think about making a space tasteful. None of these are rules. They are starting points we return to again and again. 1. The walls are central Walls are the most overlooked surface in most homes. People spend months choosing a sofa and then leave the wall behind it bare, or fill it with whatever was on sale. Yet the walls are where the eye goes first when you walk into a room, and they are the easiest way to pull a space together. Photography: Greg Cox. Design: Wiid Design. Image via Wiid Design's Instagram. Some people start a room with an object, others with an idea. I like to start with the walls, and the quickest way to bring a wall to life is art. The type of art matters. Generic prints, the kind you could find in any hotel corridor or furniture showroom, don't say much except that the choice wasn't intentional. That said, if generic art is what is accessible to you right now, it is still a step up from an empty wall. Start where you are. When you're ready to go further, remember that good art doesn't have to be expensive: Look to emerging artists. There are many young artists producing fantastic work at accessible prices. Buying from them early means you own something original, and you support the creative community around you. Visit graduate and open-studio shows. Art school exhibitions and studio open days are where you meet artists before the galleries do. Follow artists online. Many sell directly through Instagram, often offering smaller works, studies or prints. Frame things that matter to you. A textile from a trip, a handwritten letter, an old family photograph or a child's drawing, properly fra…