This year has to be the best autumn I can remember in the many years that I've lived in London. The colours of the leaves are absolutely breathtaking. I'm fortunate enough to live across the road from Tooting Common, a three square mile space of parkland comprising both woodland and areas of park for the public.
Read moreThe Flower Fairy
Not only am I an interior decorator but I'm also a qualified & experienced florist. As part of the services I provide, I offer a two hour consultation at your home to teach you how to make the most of your vases and the flowers you buy or pick from your garden. I'm the Flower Fairy!!
Read moreChoosing colours for a Victorian home
Find out how I helped the owners of this newly renovated South West London Victorian home to come up with colour schemes and finishes, working with the existing furniture to give a contemporary edge to the original period features.
Read moreBargains and Beauty
uesday 11th October was a stunningly beautiful, clear, warm autumn day in London. A friend and I met at 6.30am at my house and drove to the Sunbury Antiques Market for a spot of bargain hunting. It's once a fortnight at the Kempton Racecourse and has been running for 35 years. There are over 700 stallholders inside and outside and there is a huge range of antique goods on offer from furniture, gold & silverware, jewellery, ceramics, vintage items and fashion, garden ephemera, paintings and much more. We arrived around 7.15am to the most glorious sunrise over the racecourse. All that was missing were some horses with steaming breaths and their jockeys galloping around the track in practice, to complete the idyllic scene.
Read moreA radical makeover
Read all about the most radical makeover I've done to date. Out of this nicotine-stained man-cave I created a classic yet contemporary and comfortable snug, as a gift for my client's husband.
Read moreOpen garden day at Petersham House
Last Sunday I went with my sister & husband to see the gardens of Petersham House, where the owners of Petersham Nurseries live. It is a stunning Georgian house and exquisite gardens next to the nurseries and they open the gardens to the public one day a year. After a walk around the gardens we had lunch in the formal restaurant in the nurseries. We entered the gardens from the nurseries where you walk through the kitchen garden for the restaurant which also includes flowers they grow for decorating the restaurant, shop and glass houses.
Read moreDecorex 2016 here we come!
On Tuesday my friend Jane Fitch, also an interior designer, and I made our annual pilgrimage to Decorex at Syon Park. Decorex is internationally renowned for being THE event to discover the very best and most coveted products from 400 exhibitors. Decorex has been running for 39 years and this is the third year that I have been.
We were not blown away by much this year as it was very much the same exhibitors as last year. However some new blood gave a much needed injection of interest. I've included below a few newcomers as well as some highlights.
Naomi Paul beautiful crocheted lampshades were a feature in the VIP lounge as well as on their stand. Their ethos is to create beautiful functional textile objects by highly skilled craftsmanship and they certainly have achieve this. The lampshades are simple, stylish and elegant.
Bert and May are another newcomer to Decorex. They are committed to raw materials, natural pigments and fine craftsmanship which they certainly have achieved in their products. They launched a fabric range at Decorex which were beautiful subtle colours and bold geometric designs.
Santorus is another exciting newcomer. Brother and sister, Fabian and Tara have a rich cultural heritage of Indian and Italian parents and their products certainly reflect this. I adore the patterns and colours of their fabrics and wallpapers.
Tom Raffield is a relative newcomer to Decorex. Their beautiful wooden lighting and furniture are made in a woodland workshop in Cornwall where the company is based.
Tom Faulkner is not a newcomer to Decorex but I am always interested in visiting their stand and seeing their exquisite handmade furniture.
No visit to Decorex would be complete without a vist to the Ochre stand. I am always in awe of their celestial pebble light!
There is always the obligatory over-the-top glitz and these Murano chandeliers by iDogi were no exception!
I always look forward to the floral displays on the exhibition stands but they were few and far between this year and very disappointing. The one that stood out for me was on the Sir John Soane Museum stand which was designed by Ben Pentreath and the magnificent display of dahlias was grown and designed by Ben's partner Charlie McCormick. This stand stood out from all the others for its design and colour.
To finish this whistlestop tour, here are a few more shots that I took.
I hope you enjoyed seeing a few of the highlights of Decorex. It was a long day as there were over 400 stands to see. A few glasses of bubbly in the VIP lounge with canapes helped to keep up our energy levels!
Did you go to Decorex this year? What did you think of it and what were your favourites? I would love to hear so do drop me a note.
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A visit to Knole
My Kiwi house guest and I visited Knole a couple of weeks ago. I'd never been but was keen to go given its links to the Bloomsbury Group - it was Vita Sackville-West's childhood home and she was link to the Bloomsbury Group with which I am currently totally fascinated given that I've visited Charleston House and Monk's House this summer, the latter being the home of Virginia & Leonard Woolf.
Read moreRoute marching along the Thames
I've had a friend staying from my home town, Christchurch (NZ) so I'm a bit behind with my blog posts. Two weeks ago we decided to walk from my home (Balham) to Petersham Nurseries along the Thames Path. It was the perfect day for walking, not too hot. However little did we know how many kilometres it was and how long it would take us!
It was in fact 19.4 kilometres! My friend had flown from Sydney the day before arriving in London at 9pm, she's 68 years old and yet she walked all that way just to reach one of her favourite spots. Call us bonkers or what?!!
Read moreMy home featured in a magazine this month!
Hi folks. I'm very excited as my home is featured in the latest issue (October16) of the interiors magazine, 25 Beautiful Homes !! It was photographed back in April and I was waiting on tenterhooks to hear in which issue of the magazine it would appear.
So this is just a very short post to share this with you and show you the pages in the magazine where it appears.
Read moreGive a piece of furniture a new lease of life
I'm a great one for up-cycling furniture with a lick of paint rather than get rid of it. I usually paint with Annie Sloan chalk paint as it's so easy to use - no prep required and you can paint it on any surface including on fabric! However this time I wanted a specific colour which doesn't come in the Annie Sloan range so I opted for Farrow & Ball which had the exact colour.
I'm a huge fan of Farrow & Ball paint and I have used it throughout my home. Most, if not all, my clients have F&B throughout their homes. I particularly like the way F&B split their neutrals into six groups which makes it so much easier for people when trying to choose a neutral colour(s). In fact I use the six neutral groups as the basis for my colour talks.
Read moreChelsea Physic Garden - a hidden gem
Last week I took a friend to the Chelsea Physic Garden for lunch and a wander. I'm a member of the garden and I love to pop in there to sit and read, have lunch or tea & cake, or a wander. I find it a real little oasis in the middle of Chelsea and a source of inspiration.
We parked in Battersea Park and walked over the prettiest of the bridges over the Thames, the Albert Bridge. I whizz over the bridge on my moped but can't stop to admire it or the view so it was a treat to be able to walk over it and take some photos.
Read moreA Bloomsbury pilgrimage
esterday I spent an absolutely amazing day out in Sussex with a friend on a "pilgrimage". Having been to see Charleston House and Berwick Church three weeks ago and becoming obsessed with the Bloomsbury Group, I wanted to return to see Monk's House, the home of Virginia and Leonard Woolf and also to visit the church in the village of Firle where Vanessa Bell, her live-in lover Duncan Grant and Vanessa's son Quentin Bell (from her marriage to Clive Bell) are buried.
It was a perfect English summer's day - cloudless sky, a lovely cool breeze and temperatures around 25C. Be warned now, I'm afraid this blog post is serious photographic spam!!
Read moreSleepover in the Cotswolds
Last Saturday early evening I headed to my friends' new house near Cirencester for a sleepover. They have built a stunning New England style home on Summer Lake which is part of the Cotswold Water Park in a beautiful rural area in the Gloucestershire countryside, with 147 gravel-quarry lakes, formed over time and enriched with diverse wildlife and natural resource. Summer Lake is the last of the lakes to be developed and there will be 45 of these luxury detached lodges.
I arrived at 8pm as the sun was setting. The house was bathed in the early evening light and the setting sun over the lake was simply magical. One lone paddle boarder glided past in a world of his own.
There were six of us and we ate a leisurely supper with the doors open and the evening air wafting in
The next morning the sun shone and I could really appreciate the lake and surroundings. Some of us bird watched with binoculars, others dozed in the sunshine. The indoor/outdoor flow of the house works so well.
After rising around 10am and having a coffee & croissant breakfast we headed into Cirencester about 10 minutes away. I've never been before and found it to be the most delightful, quintessential English town with the beautiful church of John the Baptist in the centre.
The centre of Cirecenster has some fabulous architecture. In one of the shops on the main street was a fantastic antiques market which was a rabbit warren of rooms. I could have spent hours there browsing.
We stopped for a liquid refreshment at the Kings Head hotel opposite the church. It has been beautifully but sympathetically designed inside
Then it was back to the lake house to pack and return to London. Who needs to go abroad when you could own a house on a lake like this one!!
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Sourcing antique and vintage items in Petworth
On Monday I took three friends in the car for a day out to Petworth. It is a beautiful, vibrant and quintessential English market town which, reputedly, has more antique shops than any other town in the UK so what better place to go to source vintage and antique items for my clients and obviously a good look for myself also! It was a cloudy day with rain forecast around 2pm so we got an early start with a coffee pit stop north of Petworth at the lovely little village of Chiddingfold which has the most enormous green in the middle of it flanked by some beautiful old houses.
Read morePerfect design inspiration - the Bloomsbury Group
For those of you who don't know Charleston House, it is the home of the Bloomsbury Group and became a country outpost for a group of artists, writers and intellectuals. It started in 1916 when the painter Vanessa Bell, her husband Clive and their two sons Julian and Quentin moved there from London on the recommendation of her sister, the writer Virginia Woolf. With them were another painter Duncan Grant and his friend David Garnett. They rented the late 16th century farmhouse and despite the house having no hot water or heating, guests increased the household. It became a rather unconventional household of friendships and relationships - they didn't separate or divorce, they just reorganised!!!
Read moreBristol - a city of art and inspiration
visited the city of Bristol yesterday for the first time and it was all thanks to Instagram !! When I joined IG a year ago I thought it would just be an app on my phone where one looked at other people's images and made the odd comment or two. I was so wrong - IG has been a revelation, I've met so many like-minded, interesting people on IG and I've started to meet some of these lovely people in person. It's rather like a blind date as you've chatted on IG for months and got to know the person but sometimes you haven't even seen a photo of them. Then there's always the risk as with any chatting online that the person isn't quite their online persona. Anyway, yesterday was about meeting up with some IGers (as they are called) in Bristol. Most were unavailable or on holiday but two ladies, Lou and Marcie, were keen to meet up.
I jumped on the train at Paddington with some trepidation.
Read moreGreat Dixter - beauty beyond words
This blog post speaks for itself. It is a tribute to one of England's most beautiful gardens, Great Dixter. I can safely say it is the most inspirational place I've visited in England. It is a orgy of colour, texture and form and one runs out of superlatives to describe its beauty.
Read more"How many kinds of sweet flowers grow, in an English country garden?" Visit to Seend Manor
Yesterday I had the great pleasure of visiting one of the most beautiful private gardens that I have ever seen - Seend Manor, a grade II listed Georgian house in Wiltshire. The village of Seend lies on and around a hog's back ridge in the triangle formed by Melksham, Devizes and Trowbridge. The garden was opened to the public as part of Open Garden events in aid of Dorothy House Hospice Care.
Read moreHeadboard or Artwork in a Bedroom?
Do you have a headboard on your bed? Many of us don't. So what alternatives are there? Mirrors, artwork, wall hangings.......... ?
In one of my bedrooms the bed has no headboard so I have added a very narrow bookcase on which are two lamps. However the wall above that was completely empty and crying out for a wow factor alternative to a headboard.
I recently purchased a boxed set by Natural Curiosities of 14 x 14 inch square prints called 'Images for the Inquisitive - Volume 12 - Hortus Eystettensis'. They bear the authentic Latin name of an important 1613 collection of engravings of every species in the palace garden of Prince Bishop of Eichstätt in Bavaria). The box had been sitting in a cupboard and this was the perfect opportunity to have some of them framed and placed as art decor behind the bed. I used my wonderful picture framers, Read and Booth, in Wandsworth Bridge Road, London SW6, who helped me select nine of the prints and a suitable frame (with no mount). I planned to hang them 3 x 3 to add a real sense of drama to the room. The ceilings are very high in the room so there was plenty of space below the picture rail. I also painted the lamp bases in Annie Sloan's 'Aubusson Blue' and bought a pair with a lovely botanical fern pattern pleated shades by Pooky Lighting.
In the other bedroom there is a headboard but the wall above the headboard needed something on it to complement the headboard and add a wow factor.
I had forgotten all about a very old book of Pierre-Joseph Redouté rose prints that was my grandmother's. Belgian born Redouté achieved success as a painter working for the French royal court as a tutor to Marie Antoinette and later from 1798 was appointed to paint the flowers of Malmaison by Josephine Bonaparte. His famous published works include 'Les Liliacées' and 'Les Roses'. This version of 'Les Roses' was published in 1954 and I had rescued it from my grandmother's house in New Zealand when she passed away over 40 years ago!! I had a light bulb moment and decided to create a group of framed rose prints above the bed as the colours would beautifully complement the headboard and the colours of the cushions and Kantha throw. Also, the wall colour, Farrow & Ball 'Teresa's Green' would provide the perfect colour to enhance their beauty. Once again my lovely framers, David and James from Read and Booth helped me select the eight prints from the book and a suitable frame. The frame is a reddish-brown wood which really works well with the background colour of the prints and the red/pink colours of the roses.
I hope I have inspired you to use art in a bedroom in place of a headboard or even to enhance a headboard. I would love to see what you have done with the wall above your bed(s) so do send me pics.
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Design Week 2015 at Chelsea Harbour is the perfect environment for meeting and greeting the great and good of the interior design world. Find out all the juicy design details of my first day at the Design Centre.