In conversation with Ayesha Cotter of Ayesha Bethany Interiors

Ayesha Bethany Interiors mindfully creates interiors infused with balance, harmony and love. Connecting the essence of you and your home to create meaningful, lasting design.

Ayesha is passionate about helping her clients to create beautiful spaces that they can feel comfortable and connected in and to just feel happy and proud of their home, surrounded by all the things that they love and cherish.

This company’s services include paint colour consultations, design consultations that will cover paint colours, flooring choices, furniture selection, lighting, artwork and accessories, painting, window treatment design that will help you to choose curtain and blind fabric as well as Feng Shui which creates balance harmony and flow within the home.

“I’ve been an interior designer at heart, all of my life. Even as a child, I would rearrange peoples furniture and mentally re-purpose the spaces in my mind. Wondering why people didn’t do what seemed natural for the improvement of the room!

On finishing school, I seemed interested in two subjects. They were Psychology and interior design. Two very different career paths. My career guidance teacher said I was too emotional to work in psychology! Although she perhaps shouldn’t have vocalised this assumption, she was probably in fact quite correct. I chose Interior Design which fulfilled my creative flair,’’ explained Ayesha Cotter.

“During my first year of college studying interior design, I began to get panic attacks, which became very debilitating and I eventually had to leave the course to give myself some time. When I returned to study a year later, it was to do a course in Estate Agency.

Still working in property but I was too anxious to return to the former college, for fear of the memories of the panic attacks! I completed the three year estate agency course and worked in many aspects of the property arena for 10 successful years.

My last position within this career, was as a property manager and I spent much time organising fit outs and refurbishments for landlords and vendors, making simple yet effective changes, that not only ensured the successful rental or sale of the property within a quick timeframe but increased the achievable market price significantly beyond the cost of the said improvements.

“This was where my attention and interest was drawn once again back to interior design and I knew that this and this alone was what I wanted to pursue. I returned to studying a Diploma in Interior Design with the Interiors Academy Of Ireland. Several years on and I am running my own successful Interior Design business. Like before with doing the fit outs, I do a lot of the physical work myself including the painting as I love to be the one that is creating the transformation beyond the vision,’’ she enthused.

“As I look back now on my career, it is interesting how both interior design and psychology became a big part of my life together anyway because of the struggles that ensued for me with panic attacks and depression! This is what led me to the mindful type of interior design that I practise.

For me, there has to be a deeper meaning to my work and understanding how your home plays a vital part in your mental and emotional well being is something I give paramount importance to when choosing colours and designing.

“We spend so much time in our homes, yet how often do we ask ourselves, how are our homes making us feel? This is an important question we can all ask ourselves because the reality is, we can use our homes to support us or we can let them completely overwhelm us. The starting point to figure this out for yourself, is to ask yourself how you feel when you come home.

When you drive up to the door, how do you feel about going inside? Are you completely happy and relaxed or are there things that need to be tackled and they’re just not getting done for whatever reason. Are there areas of your home that you just don’t feel good in? Maybe you know why, maybe you don’t, but all of this is having a massive impact on your subconscious mind and you owe it to yourself to tackle it, get help to tackle it and turn it all around,’’ continued Ms Cotter.

“When your home is decluttered, balanced, refreshed, harmonised, it feels so good! It relieves your daily stresses and burdens. It’s a place of refuge, a place to recharge, a place to reconnect. We all need this restorative support in our lives, in order to deal with everything else that is going on for us and your house can absolutely do that for you!

“My Interior Design philosophy is ultimately about helping people to feel good sustainably in their environment. It really is about that deeper, more meaningful connection. I am not a materialistic person. Luxury isn’t necessarily going to make you happy forever and neither will trends. I take the time to understand my clients and I know intuitively the colours that will suit their homes and the energy of the design that is required to give them that balance, harmony and connection with their spaces.

In 2021 I began studying Feng Shui and it has changed my life completely. Feng Shui deals with the five elements in nature and it is in short, like bringing the calmness and tranquillity of nature into your home. Since practising Feng Shui, I no longer suffer from anxiety or depression in the same way and instead my life has become full of gratitude and joy. I felt naturally called to study it and what is wonderful about Feng Shui that I never initially realised is how much it changes not just the energies in your home but those within all the occupants as well.

I am still on a personal and exciting journey with myself that I know I will never turn back from and it is without question, one of the best things I have ever done in my life. I owed it to myself to change the paradigm in my life and every one of us owes ourselves that space and time to free ourselves of all which is holding us back and to embrace this life with two hands. To have freedom in our hearts, in our minds and in our homes and to live our most purposeful life.

It is just limitless how we can use our homes like this to change and inspire our lives and I invite you to ask yourself, do you owe yourself this freedom? To find happiness within your home and within yourself? This is the power of our homes and the power we hold within us to make that decision and activate that change, ended Ayesha Cotter.