Cupboard Love

I remember my grandmother's farmhouse kitchen fondly. As children we were regularly roped in to help with chores. If we weren't outside weeding the garden, or feeding the pigs, we'd be at the kitchen table podding peas, while she busied herself at the aga, and Beethoven wafted from the "wireless". The kitchen's charm lay in it's ad hoc nature. Apart from the aga, there was the enamel topped pine table with a couple of low stools which made an excruciating noise on the quarry tile floor. There was the 1950s pine dresser filled with Cornishware, Crown Devon coffee cups and ancient biscuit tins of long lost brands such as Peek Freans, and Huntley & Palmers. The few built-in cupboards were cream painted tongue and groove, either side of the Belfast sink and wooden drainer. Through a door with a Sussex latch, was the extensive larder, which housed a wonderful 1950s Frigidaire fridge. Imperfect it may have been, and it was certainly a world away from the mass produced and streamlined perfection we've become used to today. However, I sense the wheel is turning again. Perhaps we are beginning to realise that our throwaway society with its constant striving for modernity and convenience isn't necessarily desirable or sustainable. There may also be an element of nostalgia, connected to our current economic difficulties, but there is now a clear trend to recycle what we already have, in a way that would have come naturally to our grandmothers.

That's what I like about Armorel kitchens, a small business based in Surrey, which has captured this trend and translated it into beautiful and functional kitchens, mixing antique elements with modern craftwork. Its owner, Tamsin Collier scours the internet and auction rooms for pieces of furniture, which, with a little adapting can form the basis of a kitchen's design. Unlike other kitchen companies, there are no standard ranges, so each project is completely individual, reflecting the home and its owner. To this end, Tamsin also spends a lot of time researching particular styles, be it 19th century Scandanavian for one client, or Arts & Crafts for another.

We had a great couple of days styling and shooting the various kitchens, and I look forward to seeing what will inspire Tamsin next.

School Food

'It's finals week on Masterchef, and cooking doesn't get tougher than this'. And for the rest of us, who cook a little less competitively, there's always Waitrose's own cookery school. Located above their store on Finchley Road, they offer day,evening and weekend courses as well as demonstrations by guest chefs. They are also planning a cookery roadshow, where some of these images will be used as backdrops.

Real Home 1

Many of the homes featured on my blog have been designed on budgets that most of us can only fantasise about. The interiors equivalents of Ferraris or Aston Martins. So just occasionally I thought we should take a spin in a Mini or Ford Fiesta. Being restricted financially and spatially, needn't mean a corresponding lack of creativity. Far from it. I have friends whose homes exhibit personality and passion that far exceed the contents of their wallet. 

Architects Dagmar and Chris Binstead live with their daughter in a small 1930s flat, not far from me in Gipsy Hill. In common with many of us, their home is a work in progress, that has to be fitted around the lives of 2 busy working parents, as well as the usual budgetary constraints. The biggest project undertaken so far, has been installing the bespoke kitchen. 'Bespoke' suggests acres of expensive materials, but the Binsteads' kitchen is no less bespoke for being entirely constructed in plywood, hand finished by themselves. And no less photogenic either. 

Elsewhere, simple furnishings are somehow in keeping with the flat's period, and the thundery grey walls are surprisingly calming. Restraint in some areas, allowed for the burst of blue Bisazza tiles in the bathroom, and most extravagantly of all, a sleek wardrobe from Heals in the bedroom.

Strangely, with the plastic storage above the wardrobe, the whole effect made me think of Tate Modern, with its light glass structure hovering above the mighty brick walls.

Irish Journal - Part 2

It's a shame I didn't have time for any landscape shots while I was in Mayo, but then that's good reason to return. The second house I shot for Philippa, commanded spectacular views over the water from its elevated position. This image gives just a glimpse.

This house is much more simply decorated, being a rental property. Hard wearing tweedy fabrics, monochrome landscape prints and rustic pottery all give it character. Who needs wallpaper with views like that providing a backdrop? This is clearly a home for someone who wants to be out in the landscape. The hugeness of the outside is however reflected in the scale of the main rooms. You could live in the kitchen alone.

Couture House

Shortly after writing my last post, I watched a BBC4 documentary on the couturier, Valentino. The film was the "fly on the wall" type, following him over a period of a few weeks or months, and recording him at work on a new collection, interspersed with moments from his personal life. it struck me that the interior design world has much in common with the fashion world. While most of us buy our clothes "off the peg", we decorate our homes in much the same way; buying things on impulse and decorating from a pallette of materials and furnishings readily available on the high street, or more probably from large Swedish blue and yellow sheds on the edge of town. However, there are those who can afford something more bespoke, and will employ an Interior Designer or Architect, to give their home a unique, made-to-measure look. The ornate swags and pelmets featured in my last story (below) clearly belong in this category, with their expensive fabrics and extravagant designs. This next house, in Kensington was refurbished by Studio Indigo, an architectural firm based in the mecca of Interior Couturiers, Chelsea Harbour, working in conjunction with California based Interior Designer, Lindy Smallwood. It contains many of the prerequisites for a bespoke house; the rich fabrics and furniture, the dazzling wall coverings, in particular the de Gournay chinese silk in the dining room; elaborate lighting and home entertainment systems; basement media / family room; kitchen by  Mark Wilkinson; bedrooms with attached sitting rooms and walk-in wardrobes or dressing rooms the size of most one bedroom flats. 

With its gilt edged joinery, the dressing room is the piece de resistance. Immaculately detailed and finished, it is the perfect environment for one's couture wardrobe.