There has been a return to 80’s style decorating in recent years, which has been embraced by a whole new generation who have fallen in love with the traditional English style country house interior. We’ve seen the reappearance of frilled skirts around chairs and sofas, pattern on pattern maximalism and now wall paper borders are being used again within interiors.
Green & Pink border Rockett St George
I for one am a big fan of wallpaper borders. They are the perfect entry level to using pattern and colour in your home, if a fully wallpapered room is a bridge too far. They can also add a quick flourish to an already decorated room without changing anything else. By using a border against a plain painted wall, it gives interest and highlights architectural features beautifully and can also become the accent colour to pull a room together.
Traditionally borders were used to hide the copper tacks used to hang panels of wallpaper which were used sparingly, due to it’s expense. More recently in the 20th century, those of us that remember the 80’s might recall that they were generally used to hide the join between two different styles of wallpapers, much like a dado rail or were often used higher up on the wall to act like a picture rail.
Creative surface pattern designers, such as Common Room, are upgrading the status of borders & using them around the entire room, rather than just one area, to highlight architectural features within rooms such as around doors and above skirting boards.
I’ll most definitely be introducing some wallpaper borders within a few schemes I have planned for this year. What are your thoughts on them? Are you in or have you no desire to return back the 80’s?
So if you’re like me and still not finished (or really even started) your Christmas gift buying, I thought I’d put together my gift guide for some of the best small independent businesses, that I’ve bought from.
Also full disclaimer, most of these gifts are aimed at women, other than perhaps the artwork. The men in my house always send me lists of items they want, which always involve clothes or music equipement or vinyl. So the items below are things I’ve either bought for myself, my daughter or my girlfriends. I’ll keep them in categories, as simplicity is what’s need at this frantic time of year.
Clothes
Beaumont Organic are a Manchester based, sustainable clothing brand, who have most of their items produced in a small factory in Portugal. Overseen by founder Hannah Beaumont, who launched the business in 2008, the items are made in small batches from sustainable and recycled fabrics. I was recently gifted a knitted tabard which has been made from recycled bottle tops, which you would never know, as it’s soft and cosy. It’s well made and comes in 2 colours, rust or olive and is a great versatile item, which you can layer over almost anything. There are also lots of other lovely items online that will take you from season to season.
Bonte are a recent discovery for me. I first saw their chequerboard, hand blocked dress whilst visiting Domestic Science in Tetbury and bought it on sight. I’ve since bought the Quincy dress and have worn both numerous times. At a good price point and made sustainably in India, I know I’ll continue to buy from this London based brand.
Damson Madder were introduced to me by my daughter. Again a London based, female led studio, founded in 2020, their designs are fun and quirky. I recently bought the Antonella striped PJ’s for my daughter for her birthday. They are pretty expensive for PJ’s but Damson Madder are very transparent about their sustainable values and you can’t put a price on that.
Room Fragrances
Fern & Fellwas created by Sharon Lomas when she moved to Cumbria for a slower pace of life. Inspired by her natural surroundings, these are some of the nicest smelling candles I’ve had.
Dalt Vila reed diffuser by Hunter Jones in Rye, is one of the lovliest and longest lasting room scents I’ve bought. The products are hand made in Rye UK and sold through their shop or online. Inspired by an evening in Ibiza old town, this conjures up heady summer nights for me and I absolutely love the scent it’s infused our home with.
Books
If anyone is ever stuck for buying me a gift, they always buy me a book. I am a book worm. I love reading and looking at beautiful photography and interiors. My home is filled with books, floor to ceiling in many of the rooms. These are just some of the books that I’ve been gifted this year.
A Home for All Seasons created by stylist Kay Prestney and photographer Becca Cherry, showcases homes which have used natures finds to style their homes through out each season. A visual feast with some simple styling ideas that you can create in your own home.
An Artists Journey by Tiny Stories is a beautifully photographed book documenting the travels of it’s author and how those travels have inspired her creative life. A gorgeous book for anyone looking to unlock their creativity through the world around them.
The Poetry of Spaces is a guide to creating meaningful interiors by Sarah Andrews. This book was gifted to me by a friend and it couldn’t be more in tune with how I like to create an interior, using antiques, art, found items and flowers. A beautiful visual book.
Jewellery is always a lovely personal gift to give. My daughter particularly loves it and I enjoy finding small businesses who make unusual pieces sustainably, mostly from recycled gold or silver waste, to give to her. Some of my favourite brands are:
Corinne Joy Jewellerywho is based in North Wales and uses only silver waste to create her designs. I’ve bought my daughter, over the years, a North star necklace and these earrings, both of which she wears all the time.
Missoma who are a bigger organisation and make lovely items from gold and silver waste. They have also done a range of collaborations with other creatives including Lucy Williams & fashion designer Harris Reed.
Rachel Jackson is the go to for buying gifts for the fashionista in your life. I particularly love the electric love mini garnet ring in her collection for my daughter.
Antiques and Interiors are a gift that most people with their own place to call home appreciate. Some of my favourite independent sellers are:
Medium Room for great art. Natalie always has paintings that I covet and has an amazing eye. Her stock sells pretty quickly so stand by your phones.
Collins & Green run by Julia Collins who has a masters in the history of art & has the most beautiful stock. Interesting, colourful, thoughtful and abundant. If you can’t find something you like on her website, then you simply don’t like art.
Folie Chambre sell a curated selection of european antiques and vintage, but also design a small collection of their own, all made in the UK. I particularly love their Christmas baubles which come in a range of great colours. This is a forever gift which will just keep giving, year after year.
I also have an online antiques shop The Old Potato Store which has a range of art, small homewares and items of furniture available.
Courses
There is nothing better, for me, come the new year, or those inbetween twixtmas days when i’ve eaten all the left overs in the fridge, watched every film I want to watch and read all my new books gifted, than to get stuck into some learning. This year I’ve asked my daughter to buy me an online course from BBC Maestro and I can’t wait to start it! So if you are stuck for something to buy that person that seems to have everything, I would recommend a course for them. It can be either online that they can plough through at their own pace, or a workshop they can attend with like minded people. There are many to choose from all over the country but these are a few I would recommend and yes there is a shameless bit of marketing here for one of my own courses which I can offer you a 20% discount code for. Keep reading for the full info 🙂
The Contented Mole offers a myriad of workshops which are run from her beautiful house in the depths of the Cheshire Country side. Annabel is a flower grower so many of the courses revolve around flowers or nature. Check out her website for her calendar of events for 2025. It might be worth dropping her an email if there is no information available yet for whats coming up?
Fiona Pickles is the master of large format floral installations but she’s also been a wedding florist and gardener and is now an artist. She runs workshops from her home in Yorkshire.
Daylesford Farm run lots of workshops including floristry, cooking and baking. Check their website for their calendar of events.
Ok for the shameless plug from me. Some years ago I wrote a brand styling and photography course with my friend Roberta from Hunt The Pearl. Both myself and Roberta have over 30 years experience between us as a professional photographer and brand stylist for some of the countries leading interiors brands. We have also both run or have ran, succesful antiques businesses of our own. So we put our knowledge together and wrote an online course which you can download and work through at your own pace. It’s been sold to hundreds of students all over the world, who have found it super helpful with their own photograhy and online content for their small businesses. It’s available to buy from my website and for the Christmas period we are offering you a 20% discount of the usual price of £135 if you use code SHOT20 at the checkout. You’ll receive 5 hefty modules with over 30 excercises to take and a private FB group you can join for more input from myself and Roberta, should you need or want it.
Use this link to apply the code or simply type SHOT20 at the checkout.
Following on from my last blog about Charleston House, we also visited the home of war photographer Lee Miller, whilst we were in East Sussex.
I’ve long been fascinated with Lee Miller, since being gifted the book “The Lives of Lee Miller” written by her son Anthony Penrose, when I was in my 20’s.
Lee Miller and friend taken by Mann Ray via Gagosian.com
She was a woman who lived so many extraordinary experiences throughout her life. From a vogue model, gracing the front cover of American Vogue, to muse and lover of surrealist artist and photographer Mann Ray, to war photographer and correspondant for the US army and one of the first photographers and only woman to be allowed access to the concentration camps in Eastern Europe, shortly after they were liberated. One of her most famous photographs, is a self portrait sitting in Hitlers bath, after his apartment had been raided by the US army and he was found dead with his girlfriend Eva Braun. She was so familiar with the world of press and head line grabbing images, that she knew exactly how to set the shot up, moving personal items of Hitlers, such as his photograph and ornaments into the shot and leaving her muddy war torn boots on the bath mat. It has, as she knew, become one of the defining images of the Second World War & liberation.
The film starring and produced by Kate Winslet has just been released and Lee Miller will hopefully now get some of the recognition she deserves for her documentary photography. Farley House, which became her home after the war, is somewhere I’ve wanted to visit for so long and I felt very lucky to get an insight into her life with her husband, the surrealist artist Roland Penrose, as well as being able to see some of the behind the scenes photography from the film, along side the original photos taken by Lee.
This isn’t the first exhibition of her work that I’ve seen but after I’d walked around her home, the small gallery that is in one of the outbuildings on her land, felt so intimate.
Unfortunately for the time being, there is no photography allowed in the house, as many of the items and works of art within it are by the couples friends, famous artists such as Picasso, Max Ernst and Joan Miró and the thinking behind this rule is to protect the work of the artists. I’ve added some images from Farleys official website and images of the garden are my own.
This unassuming wall tile was a gift, made by their friend Picasso
It’s an amazingly creative house as you can imagine and personal items such as Lee’s type writer, which she used to type copy for Vogue and the US army, is still on her desk in the study. There are also lots of paintings by Roland Penrose on the walls and collections of quirky and whimsical pottery, mainly by Staffordshire, which Lee collected. She was an avid and experimental cook and liked to use these pieces as part of her tablescapes, when entertaining for friends.
Picasso during his visit to East Sussex when he stayed with Lee and Roland via artsy.net
The surrounding gardens, which Roland designed as a sculpture garden, are dotted with sculptures by various artists and work of his own, and it’s here that Lee is buried.
As well as the guided tours of the house, which is open on Thursday, Friday and Sunday from April – October, there are visiting exhibitions. At the time of our visit, there was a photography exhibition of images by French surrealist photographer Claude Cahun, born Lucy Renee Mathilde Schwob, who flirted and experimented with her sexuality through her photography.
I find this area of the country rich with creative history and if you are visiting, I would definitely recommend adding a visit to Farley House and gallery to your itinerary.
My visit to Charleston House was my second. The first time I visited, which was around seven years ago, and the public were forbidden to take photographs. Although I was blown away by the house, which is the most inspirational house I’ve ever been in, it was hard to take it all in and remember the many small details that make this house so special. So visiting this time, with the photo ban lifted, was an amazing opportunity to really capture the details and decoration that I felt are so special without having to just rely on seeing images that are available online. The main rooms and pieces of decorated furniture have been well documented, but there are so many other features which haven’t, such as Virginia Woolf’s straw summer hat, sitting on top of one of the beds or the bath panel painted, in it’s more recent history in 1969, by one of Duncan Grants friends Richard Shone.
Just to give a little context and history to the house and the people who lived there, if you haven’t visited or are aware of it. Charleston Farm house is a 17th Century farmhouse in the village of Firle, just off the A27 outside of Lewes in East Sussex. It was found in 1916, by Virginia Woolf, who was at that time living in Monks House not far away, for her sister Vanessa Bell and her lover Duncan Grant to rent. Vanessa was escaping a marriage that had become platonic and both her and Duncan Bell and their wider circle of friends, who were arists, writers and historians, were conscientious objectors to the war and by renting the house, both Duncan Grant and his other lover Richard Garnett (bare with, all will be explained) were able to become employed as farm workers and escape going to war or prison for their objections.
During the first world war Charleston House became a haven for the menage a trois and their artistic friends to escape the constraints and strict morals of London life. They were experimental in both their art and their relationships. Although Duncan Grant stayed in a relationship with Vanessa Bell for many years, having a daughter together, he continued to also have male lovers, of which she was aware. The term often coined about the Bloomsbury group “They lived in squares, painted in cirlces and loved in triangles” perfectly conjures up their formal London life with their informal life in Firle.
When Roger Fry came into their lives, by forming a relationship with Duncan grant, the three of them, Vanessa, Grant and Fry, started their own furniture and design business Omega Workshops.
After the first world war ended, their many visiting friends left and went back to Europe and London, although the couple continued to rent the farmhouse for the next 20 years, inviting their many creative friends, such as E M Forster, T S Eliot & Benjamin Britten, back for the summer. Over this period, every surface within the house became a part of their art. Each piece of furniture, the walls and ceramics, were painted with flowers, circles, dancing nymphs, transforming the most basic utilitarian objects into something totally elevated and unrecognisable. The house is filled with paintings, books, inherited pieces of antique furniture brought down from the London house. There are sculptures, painted panels and doors, lamp shades and screens everywhere. Duncan Grants studio remains untouched with art supplies and bottles of alcohol scattered on the surfaces. The range of colours and patterns used is so uplifting and original that if you’re ever in need of some creative inspiration, it is an unrivalled place to visit.
It remains the most enriching and individual house I’ve ever visited, without a hint of pretension and the atmosphere of the fascinating people who lived there feels as though they have just nipped into the garden to pick some flowers to place into one of their painted vases, before coming back in to start entertaining again.
As we were visiting Copenhagen at the height of the Summer, I really wanted to spend a few days on the North Zealand coast, which can be reached in under an hour from Copenhagen. The area is rich with history and has several palaces and castles, charming coastal wooden houses, miles of coastline flanked by sand dunes and many fantastic restaurants, serving the fresh catch of the day. It’s no surprise that many Copenhagen residents have holiday homes here and it’s often termed as “The Danish Riviera.”
We boarded the train at Copenhagen central station which took just 1.5 hours to reach Tisvildeleje, with a short stop at Hillerod Station, which has a cafe on the platform to while away any time you are waiting there. The trains to Tisvildeleje are frequent and punctual so it’s a very accessable trip to make.
We had booked The Strand hotel in Tisvildeleje, recommended by Becca at Malmo & Moss who stayed there while she was researching for her interiors book Scandi Rustic. You can read Becca’s blog on her stay here.
The hotel is a large white wooden structure, rising above the High Street like a huge beach house as you walk into the town. The outside entrance to the hotel is furnished with plenty of outdoor seating and low tables, with baskets of blankets dotted around and is the perfect space for an alfresco drink before or after dinner.
Inside the hotel is furnished with natural textures such as loose linen covered sofas and wicker furniture, low lighting and masses of candles. Jazz music was was playing through the public rooms as we entered. The perfect cosy and relaxing ambiance after having just spent 6 days in 2 cities.
We had booked dinner in the hotels restaurant for our first night. The restaurant was reassuringly busy and buzzy with light streaming in through the bank of windows around two sides of the room. The waiter recommended the set menu which was around 5 or 6 courses of freshly cooked seasonal and local food and absolutely fantastic and great value for money at only around £55 per head without drinks. I would most definitely recommend booking a table here, even if you aren’t staying at the hotel. Breakfast the next morning, included in the price of the room, was also excellent, with a great choice of home made breads, meats, cheeses, eggs, fresh fruit and yoghurt, over night chai seeds and fresh juices, tea & coffee.
The owner of the hotel, a former professional ballet dancer, also owns another hotel in Tisvildeleje Helenekilde Badehotel. This is located on the beach and is also lovely,although much more expensive and I liked the location of The Strand. Being in the centre of the town, surrounded by the shops, restaurants and bars was really convenient and the hotel provide bikes which you can hire, for riding down to the beach and through the pine forest which continues along side the beach. On our second day we cycled through the forest towards the next coastal town Hornbaek but after riding for 1.5 hours we realised we were lost. Although there are wooden arrows on the trees there is no signage to tell you what direction you’re going in and although we also had maps on our phones we were just going round in circles so we gave up and headed back to the beach for a swim. Maybe next time if we have more time, we’ll try our luck again 🙂
So what is Tisvildeleje like? It’s a very upmarket seaside town with lots of private holiday homes for the Danes living close to Copenhagen, many of which can be rented on sites such as Airbnb. The High Street has plenty of beautiful homeware and clothes shops, antique shops, restaurants and bars. There’s an ice cream parlour and even a fast food outlet, Cocks & Cows although it’s much more civilised than anything we have in the UK and has lot’s of comfortable outdoor seating under a canopy. The beach has a wooden hut which serves great fish and chips, coffees and ice creams and sundowners until around 9.00pm and if you don’t have a car, there are regular buses and trains to take you to towns along the coast & inland. We didn’t travel any further than Tisvildeleje as we were happy to just relax before heading back to Copenhagen for our last few days befoe flying home.
The antique shop next to the petrol station in Tisvildeleje
Deck chairs to watch the sunset outside the beach bar
Fortaellinger a lovely shop with a great mix of antiques and contemporary homewares and clothes
Delicious Danish Ice cream
Another favourite shop in Tisvildeleje – No.17 Limited
It’s a lovely relaxed town and I would most definitely plan another holiday there tagged onto a trip to Copenhagen again.
