

Designer Spotlight - Piet Hein Eek
With so many differing trends and designs in the interiors market place, I thought it might be a good idea to write a blog every so often spotlighting a specific Designer. This week, I’d like to spotlight Dutch designer, Piet Hein Eek. Eek was born in Holland in 1967 and graduated from the Academy for Industrial Design in Eindhovan in 1990. Whilst studying there, he started to gain attention for his exam project ‘Scrap Wood Cupboards’. As a result, he sold the cupboards an


Relocating to Cornwall - Part 1. Myth, reality, the whole Cornish Pasty
I touched on, in my earlier blog 'And So The Cornish House was born...', mine and my husband’s desire to change our life and our reasons for choosing Cornwall to do it. I think it’s about time I covered how our relocation has gone thus far. Naturally, for the first six months, I think it's only normal to feel like you are on some kind of extended holiday in your favourite place in the UK. Yippee! Beach days, long coastal walks, cream teas whenever the mood takes you, which ow


Designing your dream bathroom...
Whether you are designing your dream bathroom or just a more functional interior design solution for your home, there are some key tips I recommend you follow to help make things go smoothly. < Layout – This may sound fairly straight forward, but changing your existing bathroom layout can make or break a bathroom and add hundreds of pounds on to your labour bill if you decide to move existing plumbing, waste drainage and/or pipework. Of course, you want your bathroom to loo


Goodbye Jerry & Margo. Hello Barbara & Tom...
After a busy week hunting out vintage treasures and refinishing some of my recent vintage finds, I decided to take the day off and instead, focus my attention on our cottage garden. As part of mine and my hubby’s dream to give up our successful careers in the city and say goodbye to the rat race, we decided we wanted to try and become a little more self-sufficient in terms of home grown produce and join the ‘Tom and Barbara’s’ of the world, rather than the ‘Jerry and Margo’s’


Sunshine inspired freehand mural chest of drawers
The weather in Cornwall has been stunning these past few months, even as we draw towards the end of summer to Autumn, and there’s nothing more rewarding than sitting outside my workshop on a beautiful day listening to the sound of the birds tweeting, the waves crashing and the occasional mooing of a cow. Yes, our house is surrounded by undulating Cornish countryside but just 2 miles to the coast and there’s nowhere I’d rather be when the day is as perfect as it was yesterday.


Back to Basics...
Dear Readers, Forgive me for I have sinned. It's been 5 months since my last blog entry... Why is that? Oh, I don't know really. I have been busy with the business and possibly took my eye off the ball in terms of blog writing. Well, I'm a creative professional, what can I say! I'm easily distracted by something beautiful, whether that be an interiors project, my own home renovation or refinishing a piece of furniture. Yes, it is a poor excuse, but I promise to be better f


Why use an Interior Designer
I often meet people who want to make changes to their home but are apprehensive about where to start. Many clients struggle to identify their own design style and/or the overall look they are seeking to achieve. Some believe they do not require, or want to involve a professional designer, so undertake the work themselves. Interior design is as much of a recognised trade as that of an architect, plumber or carpenter. Most individuals wouldn’t attempt to fit a bathroom without


And so The Cornish House was born...
What inspires you? That can (for some) be a difficult question to answer, especially if you had to narrow that down to a colour, a style or a piece of architecture. Clients frequently tell me they struggle to be inspired when it comes to styling or designing their home and its interiors. For me, my inspiration comes from my surroundings - architecture, the places I visit, nature. Some of those places are overseas but many of them are here; on my own doorstep. Two years ago


The 300 Year Old Lady
I am often asked what prompted me to follow a career design. It’s very difficult to think of one defining moment in my life but if I had to pin down a time, this would probably be it. Having returned from a holiday in Cornwall some 13 years ago now, my husband and I rather spontaneously decided to buy a renovation project as our first home together. We’d been looking for a house for some time but nothing seemed quite right, until that is, we met the Duchess – a somewhat dila