10
Jul, 2026

New Season, New Styles For Decor

There are those who absolutely love the freshness that a plain pale colour palette brings. The neutral shades that blend so easily with almost any curtain or bedding scheme. Keeping that overall streamlined and co-ordinated look is so important in the spring. When working with a refined and restrained pallet, it is very much better to add a couple of pops of another colour in the range but make it a really strong accent colour – if you’re working on a feminine bedroom for example, how about that pop of colour being a very floral bedding set with matching curtains. Then when it comes to choosing a couple of small items that tie it all together, there are loads of shades in the floral pattern. Where I am working at the moment, there are wonderful swathes of florally bright colours on these curtains. They are stunning and really offer that bright pop here and there of mauve, bright cornflower blue, magenta pink etc.

The nature of the neutral wall does make a difference – the aspect too. Many interior designers will be able to look at someone’s existing living space and with a few questions about the family lifestyle, habits and limitations, a scheme can be conjured up that reflects these conditions. A good designer will be able to see at a glance where plants would be a good baffle for untidiness or badly selected furniture. Another thing a decent designer will always do is find those extra special room arrangements in a magazine and find one they’ve worked on in a similar vein. There they will have experimented with the light coming into the room and will know every angle to get the best light cover. To give another example, we can all display plants on a coffee table, or on a mantle piece, but having their own put together plant stand really will set them off as a design feature. With the fashion now for dark wood coloured work stations and counters, a stand with five or six tiers that matches that will really bring a touch of class to any room, but a kitchen/family corner will definitely benefit from the lush greenery element.

Designing a room from a refit can be tricky of course, but there are ways and means. Colour changes can make a tremendous difference, even if not a great deal of space can be created. Calm plain light colour with just a colourful splash here and there will make a huge difference to an otherwise dull, dark space.

11
Apr, 2026

Knowing Which Little Acorns Our Oak Furniture Cometh From

The majority of the oak furniture coming in to and being supplied in the UK comes from European oaks. These originate from England, France and Germany. There is a massive supply of white oak to be sourced from eastern United States but this timber is not generally used for UK supplied furniture.

Great oak forests of ancient England are thought of very fondly – oak has a very special place in the collective UK heart. There is an old saying that England was built on oak. The tradition of using oak as preferred timber goes back centuries and it was always the case that the Christmas yule log was an oak log suitably decorated with mistletoe and holly. There were swathes of oak forests covering much of the land and our ancestors would carry oak acorns for luck and to ward off any illnesses. The Romans, Greeks, Druids & Celts all professed the oak tree to be magical. In fact Roman soldiers went as far as to wear oak leaf crowns when celebrating victories. Before we got to the point we’re at now, where to have a genuine British oak barn, summer house, conservatory or any number of suites of top class furniture, there has been hundreds of years of our exploitation of this magnificent tree.

The English Oak is actually a memer of the beech family. It is still our national tree due to its extraordinary height, the venerable age it can reach; legendary strength and just general acceptance that it is truly the king of the trees in UK. Oak trees have in fact been here far longer than human beings and remnants have been dated to about 300,000 years ago. Fortunately it is still the commonest tree and every so often we feel the love and make a big fuss of our oak trees. After all the ship building that commenced in the 17th C, some might wonder if there were any oaks left here but those oaks were grown for that purpose. Furniture made from 14th C oak is still available today, but at an extra high premium, as you would expect. The antiques today were just what was left – families used to break up and torch surplus items – seems criminal now, doesn’t it!

Featured image credit: Paul Seling for Pexels.

23
Mar, 2026

Flooring That Keep It’s Looks Whatever Happens

It can be very difficult to know what to do when choosing new flooring for a family home. In the sitting and living areas, it is so lovely to have that warmth provided by a luscious wool carpet – in the deep mid winter, it does make you feel that bit more cosy. In the 1960s and 70s, the advent of central heating in modern homes seemed to coincide with the move away from wooden floors and large rugs to fully fitted carpets. Our own family moved into a brand new house in the late 60s and we enjoyed the novelty of having wall to wall carpet – not wool though, that was very much out of the budget. Ours was a modern made made nylon mix, from memory. I do recall the odd crackle when anyone moved too quickly over the sitting room one in particular. Dad used to say it was a build up of friction and electricity. We just accepted it and made sure we didn’t do anything too fast – it seemed quite a common thing to occur so we never questioned it. Fitted carpet was so popular and cheap compared to wooden flooring, which would have been in the form of parquet squares or tiles. We even had fitted carpet in the family bathroom – that seems unbelievably crass nowadays and definitely a hygiene risk.

The kitchen in that house was tiny – it seems unbelievable now to think back that housewives accepted these ghastly little sculleries with no fitments – just the sink unit with shelves underneath. When we look at the amazing features that family kitchens have become these days. Definitely no carpets! Most kitchens are the social hub of the family space now, so practical flooring is more important than ever. It has to be safe, no possibility of slipping. It also has to offer beauty that complements the cabinets and overall kitchen features. One thing my own kitchen has which at the time we moved in did not seem problematic, but now that there are aged, less nimble hands doing the housework, the very hard ceramic flooring is completely unforgiving when a favourite bone china mug slips from the grasp! For some reason they fare slightly better when bouncing off the wooden floor in the L shaped sitting area. But the ceramic floor is so much easier to keep clean and is much more water tolerant, but the wooden floor has the beauty and reflects the sun in that special natural way.