Inside Interior Designer Brian Woulfe's Classic Country House | House Tour | Intérieur UK

Welcome, Ontario UK. I'm Brian Wolfe. This is Barney and Porter. Welcome to the Old Vicarage. The brief for the Old Vicarage was very different to some of the properties we work on in the company. This was more about creating a welcoming space for our friends and family to come and spend weekends. We wanted to bring some of the old royal charm back into the property. Details like cornice throughout the primary living spaces, which would have been here originally but had disappeared, I guess, over time. We changed the colour palette throughout to move away from, you know, the very typical magnolia colour that you find in English country houses to bring a little bit of a warmth and a more modern feel without losing the focus on the old period features that you're going to see throughout the property. So the property gave us a really good opportunity to express ourselves and to show some of the art that we've collected and some of the pieces that we have curated over time, as well as an opportunity to go and find some new pieces to fill some of the available space. In the hallway, because it's an Old Vicarage, you know, sourced an old church pew for our front door to take our shoes off. Lots of old objects like the urns that you see under the staircase, some antique art, some sculptures that we have found from dealers in London. Again, instead of some typical art, something that casts some shadows and a bit of drama into the space. Improving the lighting, this is an incredible lamp called the Dodo Lamp from a UK supplier. I love the drama from the feather flumes that you see at the top of the light detail. It gives a really nice reflection at night time onto the old period floors, which I love. So this is the busiest hallway in the house. It links you to the living room, the dining room and out onto the outdoor terraces. So when friends are here on a weekend and we're enjoying either the summers or old Persian rugs, we added in some radiator covers just to hide the old radiators. I didn't know about these until a couple of years ago. These are skiffers and they're really, really practical. It's a tiled floor, we're in and out of the garden, so when we're mopping or vacuuming, it protects the corner of the skirting boards. So if you do have a property with hardwood floors and it's a period property, I'd highly recommend you install them. Welcome to our living room. This is where we spend most of our evenings. It's a real mixed bag, so it has some used pieces, custom and retail, and then there's a real quirky mix of vintage and antique pieces in the space. So the sofa is a piece designed by me and it's covered in this really beautiful Holland & Cherry boiled wool fabric. It is so comfortable. The only risk with this is that you fall asleep during every TV program that you're watching. In terms of the vintage pieces that you'll find in the property, you know, things like this, it's the bobbin, turned leg side table. We've got a vintage lamp in the window, we've got some antique pieces of art dotted around the room, which is a different direction to the rest of the art you'll see in the property. And my favourite piece? Come with me. So, my favourite piece in the house. When we were doing the interiors, I sent a brief out to our favourite suppliers just to find some quirky pieces to stand out in a couple of the rooms. This one, I love playing a game with people when they arrive at the property. It's how do you get into the bar? Secret handles unveil everyone's favourite cabinet in the house. It's very much a house where people come and serve themselves, so it's a quirky way of inviting people to engage with the interiors and really relax, and it's a talking point. It's not for sale. So one of the issues with older properties, especially when you're not doing a gut refurbishment and insulating them, is the cold that you experience in them in winter. So, believe it or not, the wind howls through the floorboards here, so we had to put down an old antique Persian rug just to help keep us a little warmer in the winter, and then using heavy drapery on the windows just to feel like you're sitting in somewhere a little cozier when the wind is howling outside. This elevation has three focuses. We've got the TV on one side, we've got the fireplace in the middle, and this was rather empty and feeling a little lonely, so we had an artist commissioned to paint this lovely scene, just give it a bit of warmth, and to stop the space feeling so cold and lonely in the evenings. So I felt really basic when I discovered this, and I have never seen this feature in another property before. Welcome to the dining room. So as with the other areas of the house, this was about trying to bring some personality into the space without spending a fortune. So really the only thing that we did to the structure of the room was painting. We went for color drenching, so we used the same color on the ceiling, the cornice, the walls, and the skirting, just to bring a warm body of color into the space. We've brought the same color through in the heavy drapery in the windows. Again the heavy drapery, really important to give the room some warmth in the winter. We've layered a rug in a very similar color to the wall colors, again another antique Persian rug in the space, and then it was about curating some freestanding pieces of furniture and accessories, just to bring a personality into the space. We've our personal collection of art on the walls, we've some retail pieces in the console, in the dining table, and in the chairs. These chairs are so comfortable. Trying to get people to leave the dining room was actually a problem. They are the best dining chairs I have sat on in a really long time. So this is my favorite piece in this room. So again we reached out to our trusted network of antiques dealers and suppliers, and I needed something for extra storage, glassware, table service, napkins, serving bowls, etc. And one of our dealers proposed this piece. I think it works wonderfully, and again it's not for sale. This was a rather lonely corner in the dining room, especially for people at the other end of the dining table looking this way. So just accessorizing it with bits and pieces that we have found online. This vintage pair of wall sconces reflects the candlelight really nicely around the room, and again this gilded antique mirror bounces the light around and it just gives it a really nice interesting glow, and you get all of the wonderful reflections on the wall during the evening. This is a good example of maybe taking a more sustainable approach and upcycling pieces. This was an existing bog standard wooden fireplace surround, nothing special. There is a plain tile surround and a tiled hearth. I've just replaced the tiled hearth with a new piece of slate, and we've had it antiqued in age so it looks like it has been here for years. And then we had some leftover marbles from a project and we just put in this inlay so that it creates a little bit of drama, makes it feel a little more sophisticated than it actually is. So welcome to the oldest part of the property. This is the cottage. I'm led to believe it's 17-ish century. I don't quite know. My bad, sorry. Again, as with the rest of the property, it was less about structural changes and making any big investments into the property. It was more about how we were going to dress the space. So it was a great place for us to shove some of the pre-existing pieces that we already had into, and also to go and find some additional pieces that we wanted for the house or we wanted for this particular space. This is my favourite piece in the room. It wasn't meant to be here, it was supposed to be upstairs, but we couldn't get it up because of the weight and the size of it. There is an ongoing debate on whether or not we replace it with a piano. What do you think? I think I'd be a bit upset to lose this piece. Other pieces that we've included. So we've got the pool table. We've had it done in a custom felt colour, just so it feels a little more English country house with a stained smoked oak surround. Another thick Persian rug on the floor for some warmth. We have some retail lamps from a British supplier. And then some quirky pieces like these Chelsea textile cushions on an upcycle chair. We found this chair, which is the same as the one that you've seen in our living room. They came as a pair on an auction site and we sent it to our reupholstery company to use some leftover fabrics on it. Again, a great way of keeping the cost down. I think the charm that you find in old English period properties are all of these quirky nooks and crannies. So this staircase takes you up to the secondary guest bedroom. It also helps you lean into the imperfections in the property. You know, this has been used and abused and it's banged up and marked and that's where its beauty lies. So you can bring in some older pieces of furniture that don't have to be perfect antiques or vintage pieces into the property. And they all just work harmoniously together in the same scheme. So now we're back up in the main part of the old Vicarage. This is a slightly later property or addition. This is circa 19th century, I believe. And I just love the thickness of these door reveals. It really shows off the age of the property. We're entering the principal suite and this is our ensuite bathroom. Not every project and not every refurbishment is about, you know, structural changes and ripping stuff out for the sake of ripping it out. Here we've added the cornice, changed the ceiling colour and added the same paint to the cornice itself. We worked with House of Hackney to install this beautiful Muriel with its matching blind. There was a horrible small white mosaic tile on the back of the splashback for the vanity. We ripped that out and we had a piece of leftover marble that we had carved just to give it some drama and a bit of opulence. And my favourite wall lights that I have been wanting to use for a really long time, these Toucan wall lights, I finally managed to use somewhere and I am delighted that they're in my own bathroom. But I think, and I hope you agree, the change in the before and after of this space by just using a bold wallpaper and some imagination is as good as it would be if we'd ripped out and started from fresh. So this is the principal bedroom. Annoyingly, I was hoping this was going to be a bit different for you today. I ordered some wallpaper to install on the wall and it arrived in the wrong colour. That said, I am really happy with how it is now. It was a really, really bland space. It didn't have any cornicing, it had magnolia walls, it had yellow curtains. So we've layered it with a large vintage Persian rug. Another upcycled piece. So this is another piece I found on Vinterior and we used some leftover fabric to reupholster it. Antique pieces like the barley twist floor lamp, side table. Again, to some of our favourite suppliers for vintage and antique pieces, the pair of bedside lockers, the pair of lamps and the pair of near-matched mirrors to help bounce the light around were all wonderful finds for us. One of our favourite suppliers, again, for British-made four-poster beds. This is an emperor size so it helps fill the space and just, again, colour drenching in the room. So the same colour on the ceilings, mouldings, the walls, the skirtings and the newly installed radiator cover just to hide the radiator. This room, some really heavy drapery again in the space. Not that we actually use it, I don't think we've ever closed it because this room does have your traditional shutters. Welcome to the primary guest bedroom. You wouldn't believe it, but this looks completely different about four days ago. When you decided to come and visit me, I had the walls wallpapered and I was on my knees painting the skirtings in the fireplace last night. A lot of people say don't use red in a bedroom. It's not our primary bedroom and I wanted to go dark and moody and dramatic and give it sort of a quintessential old English boutique hotel vibe for guests when they come to stay. For me personally and for my company, it's really important to support small businesses and UK-based businesses. It's really difficult to know what to do with a decommissioned empty fireplace so we reached out to a small company called Design by Nature Flowers and we worked with them to create a few commissions which you'll see in the decommission fires throughout the property. Again, one of my favourite go-to artisans for mirrors and unusual objects in the world is a guy called Sean Phelan. He's based here in Oxfordshire and he produces these incredible mirror pieces. This is from his artistic collection and I love the drama of it. Just like the other retail pieces, this is just bog standard oak wardrobe that we found online and I had an artist come in to paint this wild garden scene on the wardrobe doors just to elevate it and do something a little special in the room. So in the guest bedrooms, one of the ways that I've added a bit of drama and warmth to the rooms was with decorative lighting. So that's about the downlights. In fact, most of the rooms don't have downlights and then it's making sure that any decorative pendants or chandeliers or floor lamps are all on dimmer switches. Don't you just love the creaky floorboards? Well, it's been a blast in Ontario, UK. Thanks for coming to visit me again. Barney and Porter, as you can see, are keen to go for a walk but if you'd like to see some more of my work, head on over to www.designbywolf.com or alternatively, you can give us a follow on Instagram. The company Instagram is designbywolf underscore and my personal one is brianwolf. See you again soon. Bye. Come on.