Jen Aguilar owns JLA Interiors, an interior decoration business based in Port Macquarie. She recently renovated Coastline Chiropractic, giving each room its own unique character through features like wallpaper murals depicting different locations. This individualized approach was inspired by accommodating the different needs of each room and Coastline's variety of clients. The renovated rooms have been very popular, with clients requesting specific rooms by their style. Jen is also keeping busy with residential projects and planning workshops on home styling. For the upcoming summer/new year, she predicts trends in geometric patterns, abstract prints in muted colors, and soft furnishings with color gradients.

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J
en, can you please introduce
yourself and your business to our
readers? Sure, I’m Jen Aguilar and my
business is JLA Interiors. I moved from
Sydney to Port Macquarie 5 years ago with
my husband and our two young children. JLA
Interiors offers interior decoration and style
consulting for both residential and commercial
premises with a focus on assisting clients to
put atmosphere and their personality into their
surrounds.
Jen, you have recently been a part of the
renovations at Coastline Chiropractic. Tell
us about this ... Yes, Coastline Chiropractic
is a well known business in Port whose
premises were in great need of an update.
There were a lot of considerations on this job,
including how to manage the renovations
with minimal impact on the clients and the
business. Luckily we have great tradespeople
in Port such as Ryan from Plus Painting, who
were very flexible and helped me minimise the
disturbance.
I chose to make the rooms warm and
comforting, using timber furniture, plush
carpet and warm beige walls. And for real
impact, each room has a feature wall for
which I chose to use wallpaper murals from
Bristol. The images I chose give each room a
certain character. For example, Room 4 makes
me feel like I’m at a spa in Fiji, Room 3 I’m
looking out of my penthouse suite window
over New York city, and the Neurology Lab
is where I get to escape to nature for a walk
through the forest. For a touch of nostalgia I
added beautiful replica Eames Organic chairs;
they’re so comfortable!
What was it that inspired you to do each
room differently? Well, initially Coastline
just planned to give the rooms a fresh coat
of paint, but once I started discussing what
Darren and his team really wanted and needed
for their clients, the concept of making them
spectacular grew from there.
Each room is a different size needing different
equipment and furniture, so I decided the
best way to tackle this was to have some
uniformity across the rooms to give it flow
but give each room its own personality and
with such a variety of clients, these had to be
pleasing for children and adults
alike.
The rooms have been so well
received that clients are now requesting
rooms by the room style such as, “Can I be
put in the New York room today?” There’s no
other business premises like it in Port and it’s
creating an incredible buzz!
What other work is keeping you busy at
the moment? I have been busy with a variety
of work, particularly residential jobs. There
are a lot of people wanting advice on how to
put their furnishings together to look ‘styled’,
rather than just placed in rooms and where to
source different furniture. I’ve also been busy
planning workshops to commence early next
year. These will give tips on how to give your
home style, easy makeover tips and much
more.
If any of your readers want more information,
they can contact me via email at
jlaguilar@bigpond.com
What do you enjoy the most about your
job? Oh, so many things! I love it when a
client struggles to explain in words how they
want their place to look, and then to have
them see it finished and say, “That’s exactly
what I wanted”. You can’t get a better feeling
than helping someone like that!
I’m a bit of a storage addict, so I love finding
solutions to the problem of clutter most of us
face and ways to make your space work better
for you. It’s great to see a room look inviting.
With a new year almost upon us, what
seem to be the trends over this summer/
new year period in home or business
decoration? Well, geometric patterns and
abstract prints are sure to be big in deep sky
blue, muted teal greens and mauves and still
brights, but not neon as we have just seen. I
think we will see lots of soft furnishings with
colour flow – where the colour creeps up in
shades like it’s been dipped in colour. I guess
it’s the modern-day version of the 1970s
tie-died materials. There’s plenty of choices to
play with for a fresh, new look – a great way
to start the new year off.
Aguilar
J L A I n t e r i o r s
en