Category: Homes

Collage of images of Shed Home office/Charis White Interiors blog

Turning a shed into a home office

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Rachel, a busy management consultant, asked me to convert her garden shed into a home office at the end of her Oxfordshire cottage garden. It needed to be a work space that Rachel really wanted to be in but also one she could separate from home at the end of the day. I have had some experience of shed conversions. I once turned our wooden summer house into a home office for a Marie Claire 101 ideas magazine interiors feature. There is something quite magical about creating outdoor rooms and I couldn’t wait to get my hands on this one!
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Collage for House & Garden Festival 2018 on Charis White Interiors blog

Best in Show at the House and Garden Festival 2018 London

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London is packed with inspirational art and interior design exhibitions at this time of year.  You really have to put on your jogging shoes to keep up with them all but there are a few I really don’t like to miss and The House and Garden Festival  (incorporating The Art & Antiques Fair) is one of them. This year’s show didn’t disappoint. It was full of bright summery colour and design – much of the best was from a few ‘stylish hunter gatherers’ who make it their business to bring international style to our shores.  Here’s my choice of Best in Show: Continue reading “Best in Show at the House and Garden Festival 2018 London” →

RHS Chelsea Flower Show inspires artist Flora Roberts

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If you aren’t one of her followers on Instagram, then there is every chance that you won’t have heard of artist and decorative painter,  Flora Roberts. For fans of surface pattern, Flora is the artist behind many highly successful floral wallpaper and fabric designs for companies such as Lewis & Wood.

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Monochrome Interiors

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If you are unsure about decorating with Monochrome in your home, frightened perhaps that it could look too stark or too gloomy, remember it’s really just about getting the colour percentages right and adding a little texture. Think about the success of Chanel, Jo Malone and The White Company branding and you can’t go too far wrong. You may remember that I wrote about Monochrome last Summer –  Style It Dark For Summer – but my love of it has recently been stoked again.
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Coldharbour Lights

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During these late January days when daylight is still in short supply, it seems more than a little appropriate to share a great lighting idea.  Coldharbour Lights‘ theatrical feathered bicycle wheel chandeliers are where Art Deco design meets Baz Luhrmann with just a dash of Boho chic. The perfect concoction perhaps to spice up the darker days of midwinter?

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Matthew Macfadyen and Hayley Atwell in Howards End: Interview with Tanya Bowd set designer for Charis White interiors blog

Interview: BBC1’s Howards End set decorator, Tanya Bowd

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Sunday night rituals in the winter for me entail putting the fire on and settling in to watch the season’s best period drama. I was so excited and, if I am honest, a little worried that I would be disappointed with the current BBC 1 TV serialisation of Howards End. Continue reading “Interview: BBC1’s Howards End set decorator, Tanya Bowd” →

Styling with antiques

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If you are one of the dedicated Instagram followers of Gear Antiques (IG @gearantiques), you won’t need me to tell you that the King is alive and er … barking on Lillie Road in Fulham. Elvis has not only been entertaining clients with his gregarious stage presence but he is also proving to be Gear Antiques’ secret weapon, when it comes to marketing. His patch – more regal in style than rock and roll –  is an antiques shop run by his owner Marc on Lillie Road in South West London. If miniature schnauzer Elvis isn’t posted in an Instagram photo by Marc – either sitting on a Jacobean chair on the pavement outside the shop or mannequin style in the window – there follows an outcry from IG followers asking ‘where’s Elvis?!’ So you see, he does live on … just in Schnauzer form …

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Anna Jeffreys – new wallpaper and fabric collection

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I keep my eye out for new textile and wallpaper designers and one whose work stood out recently was that of Anna Jeffreys which was showcased by Tissus D’Helene at a press show at The Design Centre Chelsea Harbour. Journalists usually keep their own thoughts to themselves at these events, but there was a little gasp of surprise and delight at Anna’s swatches. Anna’s seriously pretty designs stood out for their fresh colourways which mix traditional motifs with more contemporary flourishes. What makes them difficult to place is that the colour palette particularly doesn’t seem like it comes from a British design stable and that’s what makes them so interesting.

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Helen and John Worton's Cornish home collage of photos. Photos and blog: Charis White

House and garden tour: artists’ home in Cornwall

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When guests visit Helen and John Worton’s home for the first time, they sometimes find themselves left a little bit speechless! This is due to the fact that to all intents and purposes the terraced frontage of this 16th Century Cornish cottage is not at all what it appears from the village square. You might imagine that what lies behind are low-beamed ceilings with a conventional upstairs/downstairs floor plan and a country-style interior in a neutral Farrow & Ball palette.

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Tissus D’Helene: styling for Chelsea Design Week 2017

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When I was approached by  Helen Cormack of Tissus D’Helene to style her Chelsea Design Week (12 – 17 March 2017) window display, to say I was excited was an understatement! As dream jobs go, this is right up there. When I styled some features for Homes & Gardens magazine, they often used Helen’s fabrics – and I have always adored them.

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