English secret garden

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One of the sweet spots of the summer season is the moment when our calendar gets filled with dates to visit gardens open for charity on behalf of The National Garden Scheme. More exterior than interior I suppose but fairly inextricably linked for floral/botanical design inspiration and for the patterns found in imaginative landscaping. These are usually private gardens and there is often damn fine cake freshly baked from precious family recipes. If you are lucky, proper tea cups and saucers with the odd plant to buy and a bit of bunting. Heaven really.

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Totty Lowther on her horse with her Pomegranate wallpaper design for Lewis & Wood on Charis White Interiors blog

Pomegranate design for Lewis & Wood

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Textile design is as much about storytelling as it is about design for me. The storytelling is important because I want to know how the design came about and from whom. When it comes to the plot, the quirkier, the better. Especially when the protagonist has not only worked as a set decorator in the world of film, for at least two of Britain’s most treasured interior brands, but whose debut fabric and wallpaper designs for Lewis & Wood are currently lining the walls of an interior designed shipping container in the Cumbrian Hills.

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Watlington Art Week collage on Charis White Interiors blog. Angela Swan Greaves portrait by Eva Nemeth

Watlington Art Week 11 – 19 May 2019

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Watlington is a small Oxfordshire market town that is blessed with that rare species – a thriving independent high street. Nestled amongst farmland at the foot of the Chiltern Hills, it has ‘a butcher, a baker and a candlestick maker’. The butcher is called Tom, the 14-year-old baker (as featured in The Sunday Times) regularly creates queues halfway up the street for her pop-up bread sales, while the candlestick maker has show-stopping designer lighting. Oh, and the town is also about to launch its first Art Week.

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Scene from Red Joan in Cambridge on Charis White Interiors blog

Red Joan – behind the scenes

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As the film adaptation of Jennie Rooney’s novel Red Joan (directed by Trevor Nunn) opens across the UK this weekend, the blog has an exclusive behind-the-scenes tour with talented set decorator Tanya Bowd. The blog gets the low-down on the locations, where the film props were sourced and how the set team did a crash course in nuclear physics. All in a day’s work for Tanya who has worked her magic on many top film and TV series including The Crimson Field, Victoria, Howards End and more recently for The New Pope starring Jude Law.

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Easter styling

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I am no Mary Berry but if there is even a hint of an excuse to bake a C-A-K-E, then the oven is on and the cake tins are lined before a single egg has been cracked. Not only is it another styling opportunity but you can eat the props when the photographic shoot is done. When Berkshire Life magazine came to photograph our house to do a story on Styling Box (my new affordable interior design service) for their April 2019 issue, it seemed the perfect time to indulge in a bit of Easter baking and share with you some interior styling ideas that aren’t just for Easter…

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Spanish bobbin style chairs and console table at Los Modernos on Charis White Interiors blog

Madrid’s modern antique style

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Whilst the cost of high street rents is changing the way vintage and antique furniture is bought and sold in the UK, it turns out that Madrid is a city with a thriving retail secondhand scene. Last weekend, with just over 48 hours to spend in Spain’s capital, I came across the El Rastro street market (La Latino metro) with more vintage and antique shops than even I could speed-prop my way around! Here’s a few that caught my eye along the way…

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London Design Week 2019 Highlights on Charis White Interiors blog

2019 London Design Week highlights

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It’s the time of year when exciting new interior designs from the UK and around the world are showcased as part of London Design Week in Chelsea (10 – 15 March 2019). I have been attending press launches, talking to designers and viewing interior collections from some of the world’s top furniture, wallpaper and fabric companies. The ‘blog-mobile’ is bulging with gazillions of photos from different showrooms. Before my phone finally combusts on the pavement in a fireball of colour, pattern and general haute interieur gorgeousness, I am going to share with you a few key highlights with my inside styling guide!

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Affordable Antique chic/Fisher London blog at Charis White Interiors collage

Affordable antique chic

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Have you ever wondered what City lawyers, bankers and TV journalists do in their lunch hour? Well, it seems more often than not, they are to be found perusing once sunken treasure as well as other ancient artefacts such as the captivating turquoise hues of 12th Century Persian ceramics.  These carefully curated treasures are to be found amongst the antique vessels and furniture that make up Hilary Fisher’s antique shop in Gray’s Inn Road, Fisher London.

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Collage with Nantes by Lewis & Wood, Staircase by Decor Facil, Red leather chair by Howe, pannelled bathroom by Sarah Story via New York Social Diary, Little Greene paint, Dani Park wallpaper by Lindsay Alker Studio on Charis White Interiors blog/Red

Red, turning up the interiors heat in 2019

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A very Happy New Year! It’s that crystal ball time of year for trend predictions and, even if you choose to ignore them, I always think it’s fun to keep at least one eye on what’s going on. This January the blog is turning up the heat with a look at the use of primary red in interior decorating schemes. Although it may appear to be more of a micro trend right now, it’s one I believe will intensify as 2019 goes by.

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Grand Hall, Christmas Tree and lights 2018 at Castle Howard on Charis White Interiors blog

Christmas decorations at Castle Howard

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Christmas is the time of year that sends interior stylists into overdrive (even though they have often been decorating for Christmas several times over since July). We can’t resist it! However, nothing quite compares to the effort and scale that has gone into decorating Castle Howard in Yorkshire this Christmas. Respect goes to the three weeks of non-stop decorating that completed months of planning by Charlotte Lloyd Webber, Bretta Gereke and their team of 6.  The blog’s Christmas present to you this year is an edited highlights tour of Castle Howard’s celebration of The 12 Days of Christmas.
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