One thing I love about country house interiors is that they are jam packed with things. Not carefully selected things purchased specifically to reflect a certain design style or colour scheme, but weird and wonderful things, amassed over many years, generations even, and all reflecting the travels and collecting interests of the various occupants. Porcelain collections, hunting, shooting and fishing paraphernalia, tennis rackets, riding boots, curious natural history items, p

When I was at college, studying interior design back in the early noughties, I wrote an essay on the pre-Raphaelite art movement. Having benefitted from a mother keen on art history, I had heard the term before, and knew of the famous and haunting painting of the drowned Ophelia by John Everett Millais and the unmistakeable Light of the World by William Holman Hunt depicting Christ holding a lantern, an image imprinted on my memory as it had been used on a school bookmark w

I have recently been inspired by several new books, including Clive Aslet’s The Story of the Country House , a birthday present from my daughter and a great account of how and why our architecture developed as it did. Recipes for Surfaces , by Mindy Drucker and Pierre Finklestein, a very comprehensive collection of how to create historic paint effects, bought second-hand online, and Ruth Guilding’s delicious Bible of British Taste which I am savouring, slowly, mostly on Sund

One of my favourite memories from my small village primary school was going off on long walks, collecting treasures from the nearby...

We recently visited a very nice garden centre that was recommended by a friend (thank you Edward). Housed within a Victorian walled...

Taking part in a television series is a strange thing. Unless you are a celebrity, it is entirely voluntary; meaning you don’t get paid,...

I have spent a lot of time 'beginning to' restore a garden area to the side of our house. It is about forty meters square and lies to our...

Chinoiserie, from 'chinois' the French for Chinese. I purchased this beautiful little wine table from an auction last summer. It is in...

Nomenclature: noun, the devising or choosing of names for things. I have been pondering on how we should refer to the rooms on the ground...

Decorative features in our renovated Library here at Teindside include our collection of taxidermy, and, what I call my ‘Cabinets of...

Some of the colour schemes we are using here at Teindside are extremely vibrant and take inspiration from the Georgian fascination with...

When we first arrived here in 2023, the house had been empty for quite a while. The gardens and grounds were overgrown, outbuildings...

One of the overarching principles we place at the heart of our renovations here, is to whenever possible, buy second-hand. Whether that’s...