Design
Room By Room
Wallpaper books, tile samples, colour fans, and a table that disappears under them for weeks.
Each property gets one idea and everything is chosen against it. Emerald and sapphire at The Sapphire House. Terracotta and encaustic tile at Terra de Sol. Teal and walnut at The Tonic. Four gemstones at The Mooring Inn.
Colour I take from outside. A landscape never gets its palette wrong, and it never uses one texture where it could use four. Autumn most of all. Rust against gold against a deep green.
Pressed tin I put in wherever I can find a reason to. It is not always original, but it is always right.
Outside I bring in limestone, recycled brick, weathered tin, statues, and wrought iron left to get that sexy aged patina. Nothing new looking. Things that read as though they have been there longer than I have.
The garden is the part I do for myself. Cottage, never formal. Roses, scent, things allowed to lean into each other. Romantic, whimsical, a bit unbothered. Somewhere you would take a cup of tea out to rather than somewhere you admire from the doorway. It is the most therapeutic part of all of this and I suspect it shows.
Then modern against old, and a room stops looking decorated and starts looking lived in.
