Inside the Beautiful English Home of Shabby Chic Founder Rachel Ashwell

Welcome to the Luxury Home Show. I'm Rachel Ashwell, founder of Shabby Chic, designer, and I wanna show you around my home, Meadow Manor, in the English countryside, so come on in. I love the proportions of this little room. Anything up to like six people, we all gravitate towards this room, or obviously just me and my dog. It's all candlelit, even the chandelier itself, and you know what, it's never gonna come down. I just love it. Everything up here has a purpose. I always have bits from my children, but having them there really warms my heart. I've lived in this house for, getting on for three years, having lived in Los Angeles for 40 years. I was feeling a sense of wanting to kind of come back to my roots. Obviously I'm British, you can tell from my accent, but I've never actually lived in the English countryside, so it's been a new experience for me. Always felt very British, but nevertheless, country living is definitely something to get used to, and I was just having a feeling that I was really missing the seasons, and from a standpoint of a designer, which of course is largely what I am, I really felt the need for just a new landscape of inspiration, and I've certainly got that. So let's talk about the kitchen. The kitchen is a much bigger kitchen than I've ever had in my whole entire life. I'm kind of used to galley kitchens, nook kitchens. I can cook, I can cook like five dishes really well, but I definitely don't have, I'm not a chef. So I've had to kind of ease into the space because I can't bear having a space that's not fully used. So actually this has become an everything room for me. You'll see that there's two lovely big love seats that can kind of be a lounging area while everyone's cooking or eating, and it's also a place because I've got just this amazing dining table that I actually bought over from Texas from a prior life of mine, that is sometimes for snacking or feasting, but also actually to do work projects because the light's so beautiful in here. So I've worked out my way to live in this space, and it's really now become the heart of the home. So let's kind of go into more details with some other things. One thing I want to talk about actually is the AGA, which is over here, which is a really kind of signature English countryside stove, oven, not sure which. It was actually here when I purchased the house, but it had been here for 30 years. I think AGAs go right back to the 30s when they were actually to heat the whole home. Obviously lifestyles have changed, climate has changed, and originally they used to be on all the time. So now that there's these longer, warmer summers or just necessarily not being home all the time, lighting up an AGA can literally take days. I can't say I've worked out the art of AGA cooking. It's a specific way of cooking, so I do still sometimes revert back to my little electric hob and stove here. But during the winter months, I definitely have that on. I was very fortunate to inherit the cabinetry that you see. I did add this marble slab, but all the other cabinetry I just refurbished, painted, put new hardware on everything. I was thinking when I first moved into this house that I was going to be really brave with color. You know, so many English homes, they work with teals and browns and reds and even blacks. I tried it in areas, but for me, this kind of gray-blue paint on the cabinetry is really pretty brave. You'll see throughout the house that there's a lot of different collaborative programs. Since I've moved here, I have a really lovely program with Next. You'll see lots of their products, everything from the chairs to dinnerware to bedding. But a lot of it is kind of blended in with what I call my couture line, which is still based in Los Angeles, quite high-end, but it all layers in beautifully. But then a lot of vintage, you can see along the top here. These are all little tchotchkes, treasures that I have purchased over the years, largely in America, although they probably are French or Italian and landed up in America, but all of my little vintage flea market finds. So they're very useful, but they also, while they're not in use, I just find them really very beautiful. There was some additional cabinetry above these lower banks of cabinets. I actually took them away because it just felt all a little bit too cabinety for me. I like kind of freestanding hutches, even like that piece over there. I kind of like to mix in built-ins with just something that just feels a little bit more impermanent, let's call it. So even this piece here, I added that little hutch, very useful. Again, mix and match of my vintage, of some of the next cups. These are next cups, these are next cups. I actually can't tell half the time what's vintage and what's theirs because much of that program is vintage-inspired. As far as lighting goes, I'm not a big fan of bright lights. I did inherit these recess lights here. I rarely have them on. You'll see over in the dining area, it's nearly all candlelight. Even the chandelier over there, it's just candlelight and just soft little vintage lights. Obviously over here when you're cooking, having some really good lighting is important. So I'm not a big fan of dishwashers. I know sometimes you need them, but I actually like the practice of washing things by hand. I think it gives a moment to segue from the activity of eating and contemplation of just what you've just experienced, whether it's the company or whatever. So typically my little rack here is full of drying dishes. And again, you'll see it's a mixture of my vintage, some of the pieces from Next, some things I've picked up from other stores, but my drying rack I really enjoy. All of this built-in cabinetry was here when I purchased the house. In time, maybe I'll replace them with freestanding vintage pieces. I like the function of them. You know, I like having these open shelvings. I use all of my vintage china for every day where I'm not the kind of person that wants things protected with glass and barely use them. So the functionality of it, I really like. This is a pantry, which is obviously also a good function. It needs to be protected behind the cupboard doors. And then around there is just my cleaning material. So it's a very functionally designed situation, but from a visual, maybe one day I'll change it. But, you know, I think when you do renovations of homes, you know, you have your whole laundry list. Maybe it's not part of your stage one. And then once you live in the house, sometimes you don't get to stage two or three. So right now I've done my stage one and it's how I'm living and it's working out well. So I bought very little as far as furniture for this new chapter of my life. Between my bed and breakfast called The Prairie in Texas, that sadly is no longer, but all of the beautiful treasures and all of the chairs and all the furnishings, most of that came over with me, just along with other things, some other little temporary homes that I've had over the years. So I just figured, put it all in a couple of containers, didn't know for what home at the time, but beautiful things always find a place in the end. So that's what this house is. It's kind of leftovers and hand-me-downs from other chapters in my life, including these chairs. For any of you that have had my books, you'll see these chairs show up in nearly every one of my books, originally French. Dining table was from the restaurant area of The Prairie in Texas. And one of the things that I really enjoy about this home and how it's kind of evolved, it wasn't really planned, is certainly this area, which as you can see is the dining area, it's all candlelit, even the chandelier itself. I did actually bring over a chandelier that I thought would be substantial and grand for such a space, all crystally and lovely, but I could never ever get the coding of an American chandelier lighting codes to be permitted with the complexity of the UK codes. So I thought, temporarily, just gonna put this really simple candlelight and you know what? It's never gonna come down. I just love it. In the evening, have these two little vintage lights here and candlelight and it's romantic, whether it's me by myself or a whole group of people. And one of the things that I do, whether I'm just having a quick snack by myself or having friends and family over, is to me the ritual of eating. Snack or feast is of equal importance. You never see a paper plate and a paper napkin in this house. So as you can see here, there's lovely vintage China. There's also China from my next collection. It's all mixed and matched. It all layers together. I'm never precious with it. Having these flagstone floors, believe me, if you drop something, it's over. But even that, I mean, I'm careful, but even if that happens, because I have kind of such a lovely variety and there is no concern with the mix and matching kind of, oh my God, I've now only got five of those plates. It's okay. They all go together. Same with the napkins, the cutlery. So everything really in this dining area is set up for everyday wear, even though it's so very beautiful. I also even have these oversized chairs in here because this kitchen, I've really had to grow into it. And so this kitchen really is a place for everybody at any time. And I spend a lot of time over on that blue chair, as does George. It's kind of adopted that chair, but it's just become this kind of the heart of the home, this everything room. And so even though I only have a few little dishes that maybe I know how to cook, I don't feel like this is a wasted space. It's a really beautiful space. It's the first thing that you see when you walk in and it's kind of an everything room and it's pretty special. So we talked about how George has adopted this chair. He absolutely loves it. But you know what, George, there's another chair over here now that has a removable cover that you can dry clean. So this is gonna be a really good one for you too. Okay, so we've finished in the heart of the home and now we are going into my office. So now we're in my office. Another heartbeat actually. And it's where I spend hours and hours and hours and hours. And it can be exhausting. It's also completely inspiring. And so this room, not terribly large, it kind of contains all of my archives, which might just look like a mess, but actually there's real order to this chaos. And I've been doing this now for 36 years as far as design work. Even though florals of some way, shape or form, I would say is the core of my designing, it might land up on a bedding print. It might land up on wallpaper. It might be the flowers themselves, whether they're faux flowers. It might be wallpaper storage boxes, which was a recent launch with Next. But it's really fun when you've been doing something for 36 years and you have these long distance memories of what you designed before. But when you actually pull them out of the box and just take them off the shelves, you kind of re-inspire yourself. So it's really nice. I spend hours and hours specifically in this chair because I do still work in Los Angeles as an eight hour time difference. So I haven't quite worked this balance out, but often on Zoom calls until eight, 10 o'clock at night. So it can be long days. George sits on his chair until he gets irritated and then tries to close my laptop. But anyway, so this table, as simple as it is, it's been with me, this table, actually for 36 years through various houses that I've lived in and even work situations. But a lot goes on here. And it's really a time that I just really focus on my creativity. All this kind of beautiful mess here are actually printouts from my new book, which not quite hot off the press because I'm still writing it, but we have the cover. So this is coming out in 2026. So super excited about that. That's about my whole experience of this home and the whys and the hows and the future. So that's what this room is all about. It's really my creative melting pot of all of my designs. Like I said earlier, it can also be a bit much for my brain sometimes and I just need a palate cleanser and that's what the piano is about. I'm not a pianist, but I can read music. I can tinker. And so the reason I actually decided to squeeze this into the space was because sometimes when I come off a Zoom and I know I have more Zooms to do or more design work to do, just tinkering here is just like a cleanser for my brain. So that's why that's here. So this mood board, it is really beautiful. I mean, even if it was just an art piece would be very entertaining and beautiful. But actually for me, it's kind of like it's forever changing because as I'm working on things or as things become very important to me, they get a space on the mood board. Obviously I can't, for 36 years, just keep piling up and piling up. So at certain times these pieces come down and they get filed away in my forever to keep drawers. But everything up here has a purpose, whether it's a current design moment, whether it's just notes. I always have bits from my children. You know, my son lives in London, my daughter lives in Los Angeles. So having them there really warms my heart. But it's really, for me, a very considered curated kind of place. And I call it a memory board or a mood board, but it's actually very current for me. And so it really does hold its purpose. All these other little things, I am not a collector. I'm actually a minimalist, which is very hard to believe in this room. But again, I know where every single bit of ribbon and every little flower is. There's nothing that is in this room that's like, what a pile of stuff. In fact, earlier today, I needed this tiniest little flower and I knew exactly where it was on this board. So even though it might look like, you know, treasures, I'm not saying it looks like a pile of junk, I can tell you exactly even what's at the bottom of that pot. I just feel that I'm organized in my collections and in all these beautiful things, which I do, I treasure them greatly. So rumor has it that this might have, hundreds of years ago, been the main entryway. Don't know whether it's true. I'm actually not very good at being able to conceptualize architectural things, but I've been told. But it kind of makes sense because this is actually quite a beautiful grand archway, which, you know, these thick walls and it's, it is very, I don't know if I'd say palatious, but I do find it very grand. Friend of mine, Ben Peck-Whiston, who you'll see throughout the house tour, he comes and stays here sometimes and he's just got a beautiful hand of doing flowers that kind of look like you've discovered them. You know, they're rubbed down and they look like maybe they've been there and you've scraped some paint off and you found them. So I love the subtlety of them, but to me at least, they're still quite the wow. These are a couple of chandeliers that I did manage to get through the code of converting from American lighting to British. So they hang very happily here. Obviously they don't match, but I like the very subtle common thread of the turquoise drops, which again actually ties into some of the other decorative moments here, whether it be the colors that Ben decided to use, this mirror here, even this little cabinet. So even though it's a mix and a match, it's kind of got a little bit of a theme coming through. There's many a day here when guests have left. I tell them to strip their beds and I tell them just to leave everything here. So if I've had half a dozen guests, there can be quite a mound here actually of laundry. I don't find it overwhelming. I actually find there's something about, it's very meditative. You know, it is largely bedding that I've designed, whether for my couture line, whether for Next, for other partnerships that I've had. And I really appreciate them. And I appreciate the fabrics. I appreciate the prints. I appreciate the ruffles. So me doing laundry is actually quite a practice of mine that I really enjoy. So here we are. It also serves as the downstairs loo, but it's a lovely little space. It's very tiny, but it's quite charming. I've rarely, rarely put my linens and textiles in a dryer. I believe that, firstly, this room is always warm. And so these were hung up not that long ago. They're already dry. And what that also allows me to do is when I take things out the washing machine, I put them on this drying rack, or sometimes outside on the washing line if it's weather accommodating. But then I can really manipulate these ruffles when they come out. And so then they dry really beautifully. I really love, not wrinkles, but I love rumples. And so I don't really like to have to iron things, not because I'm lazy, although it would be tedious, but it's really more about, I just like a bed to look rumpled, but not wrinkled. And so this process of drying enables that. So you can see here, these have all been through the same washing and drying process. And then because this space is so small, I do give it attention of decor. And in fact, behind all these ruffles, you can see, wow, you can see some tiles here. These are vintage tiles that I've been collecting as I go. Eventually, I'd like a good portion of the wall to be covered in these tiles, but I'm very picky with the tiles that I like. So, so far, in fact, I just found this one last weekend. So eventually this will find its way, but I have to find some accompanying tiles to go with it. As far as any kind of renovation of this space, all of this actually was here. I kind of refurbished this wooden countertop. I stripped it because it was a bit shiny, but it's actually quite beautiful. I found this little cafe rod actually at a boat supply. So they furnish boat cabins. So it's just got this lovely kind of vintagey feel, but it's not vintage. Small curtains that I had. So yeah, it's a great little space. I don't know whether you can even see her, but this was a friend of mine, Jeroen Mullen. She's a beautiful artist, and she actually painted straight on the wall this lovely Pierrot. And I definitely appreciate her. So this room gets a lot of use, and I really appreciate it. And I appreciate just the process of everything that goes through here. So leaving the laundry room slash loo, we're back to the crossroads. And one of the things that I always think about here is, you know, a lot of English homes in the countryside can be quite dark, partly because of the climate, but this always has beautiful cross light. You have the hallways, you have the multiple rooms, and there's always this kind of nearly like spiritual, magical light. So always appreciate that. So now we're gonna go into my, another one of my favorite rooms is the little tiny snug. So it's through here. I love the proportions of this little room. And it's interesting because there's a bigger living room, but anything up to like six people, we all gravitate towards this room, or obviously just me and my dog. It's again, beautiful light comes through. This house is on a road, which was a little bit of a kind of decision of mine. Do I want to be on a road? But I rarely hear traffic, but I do hear tractors and I do hear horses clip-clopping, which I rather like. This was a room that I did actually initially paint like a beautiful teal color when I thought I'm gonna be brave and do kind of more of the English country, warm, cozy palette, but I just couldn't do it. So I did get brave and I actually painted these walls. They're a rose paint that's been very, very diluted. I think I diluted it by 60% with water. And then it kind of looks like ice cream because how I then had, it's a Farrel and Bourne, Wimborne white around the top part of the wall where it kind of meets the pink. If you didn't actually see that, you probably wouldn't even realize the walls were pink. Again, a lot of leftovers in this room, but they've all come together in this beautiful symphony. These curtains were from my bed and breakfast in Texas. They were a tad short. So I added just this velvet extra length. So now they fit perfectly. And, you know, the palette of Shabby Chic is typically thought to be very pale and raw woods and just very soft, but I really embrace these darker floors. I kind of like the transition from the flagstone floors onto these dark planks and kind of work with them a little bit. We did strip them back a little bit because they were reading a bit shiny, but I think the end result is really lovely. And of course, all the imperfections are really part of their beauty. This chair was actually my mom's. She's no longer with us. She, interestingly enough, she loved her floral garden, but she didn't particularly like flowers in her decor. But so this is a little paisley chair and it is a little bit threadbare. It's a little bit worse for wear and probably sooner than later, I need to make little arm covers for her, but actually maybe sounds a bit sentimental, but I just love knowing that it was her hand resting on that arm that gave it its threadbareness. So I just let that be. What else is about in this room? The fireplace. How can we forget the fireplace? It's massive, beautiful, obviously original. This house is grade two listed. You couldn't do anything to it even if you wanted to, but not that one would want to do anything about this fireplace. The only thing I did do was the chimney's not really up to snuff. So I worked with Charnwood stoves and I got this lovely log burner. So I can actually very easily just put the logs in and have the warmth, have the coziness, have the beauty without having to go through the efforts of having to build a fire in that way. And then obviously all my other decor pieces, my library of books. I'm more of a listener of books than I am of a reader of stories, but obviously for my design purposes, I have my favorite design books as well. So opposite the beautiful fireplace is of course a sofa, nowhere else for it to go. And I've been making machine washable slip cupboard sofas for 36 years for my company Shabby Chic, which is now really shabbychic.com. Maybe one day stores again, had them for many years. And of course, 36 years ago, certainly in California, there really wasn't any source of finding certainly machine washable, but even slip cupboards in general, they were like those plasticky ones. So that was really what my company was born around, was the functionality of being able to take a cover off and wash it, dry clean it, whatever the fabrication might be. The reason I kind of got so involved about it and so passionate about it is I had little toddler kids. We lived on the beach, lots of sanding feet, lots of sticky fingers, and I didn't wanna be one of those moms that was like, don't touch anything, don't get on the furniture. I just wanted to make a beautiful, comfortable, functional home. And so to me, having slip cupboard furniture was the answer to that. And then this lovely hodgepodge of cushions or decorative pillows. I've always loved Benison fabrics. I love the fabric. That's what this grape roses pattern is. And then a mixture of things that I've designed for shabbychic.com, the stripy cushion is for Next. So I actually love when all of the things that I love have designed in some parts, all just kind of sit well together and kind of like a symphony. So I think that my design work, it's quite diverse, it's stripes. The pinks can go from pale pinks to rose pinks to fuchsia pinks, same with the teals, from baby blues to all, that the colors are all over, but there's kind of a common thread of how they all tie together wherever, whatever program that I've been working on. Another candlelit opportunity, wherever I can have candles, always have it. This room actually did get the permission to hang this chandelier. This came over from America. Somehow it passed through. Of course, it has the little pale pink drop, pale pink crystal drops that tie in nicely to the diluted pink walls, but very subtly. You know, I think what I really love about how my mind works in my design sense is much of what I do is actually quite subtle, but how it all comes together really is a bit of a symphony of things and colors. So this got the twinkly lights, and then, of course, still the candle lights, and yeah, this room is a pretty cozy, special room. So now we're in the living room, which is right next to the snug. So it's kind of like the bigger version, and definitely when there's more than just a few people that can fit into the snug, this is the overflow. Two really nice-sized sofas. George loves all of them, and he definitely makes his mark, literally, but they're all machine washable, so that's okay. And my vision for this room, knowing that it would be kind of a communal space for friends and family, was, again, I wanted it to, I can't but not be romantic. It's just, it's my DNA, but I didn't wanna, like, force too much of the frills and the ruffles. So I really focused more on texture. So underneath these floorboards, and these floorboards are actually from a cheese factory, so you can actually see evidence, especially by the window, of where the cheese rounds used to be sitting on the shelves of a cheese factory. But I love the kind of the very neutral, bleached kind of finish to them. Underneath these are the same planks from the little snug, which really worked well dark. I didn't want dark in here, and the natural pine of the floors underneath this were just too orange for my palette. So we tried everything, tried acid washes, tried bleaching, tried everything, and the orange just kept coming through. So these floorboards were kind of like the stage of which the rest of the textures of the room was built upon. And again, did my half-painted wall, same with that James White, as we've seen elsewhere. I think in time, I might try and do something a little bit different in here, but I wasn't quite brave enough to do it out the gate. The fireplace, of course, is kind of dictated, really, where the furniture needed to go, as far as just how the focal point. And it is quite an ornate fireplace, which I like, but the whole point of shabby chic is exactly what those words describe, is the chic, but kind of having some humility. And so that's why I purposely put that somewhat industrial fire screen around, just to kind of give that counterbalance. And certainly when that fire is roaring, it's a really beautiful, beautiful sight. The chandelier in here is a tad off, as far as scale goes. It could have accommodated a much bigger chandelier. But when I'm designing a house, I don't get too hung up on what the rules are. I just get hung up on, does it work? Could this be bigger? Yes. Is there something charming about the juxtaposition of this larger room with a smaller chandelier with chunky crystals? It's got a really nice kind of handsome quality. So I thought, you know what, it works. It's great. It's twinkly. It's on dimmer switches. Dimmer switches are a big deal for me because I definitely like to have as little light as possible, as well as to have the candlelight as well. And the curtains was something, part of my learning journey, of the whole world of curtains. Again, just adding this very little subtle silk Dupioni pale pink border to these just very natural linen curtains. And, you know, learned a lot about the lining of curtains with this one. But I think in the case of these curtains, the lining give the linen a little bit of weight, which I really quite like. And of course we always need the signature basket of logs. And whenever possible, I like to have an abundance of flowers. And we certainly have those today. Often with coffee tables, I've done this for years, is it's very easy to find old kitchen tables, not so easy to find coffee tables. So often what I do is I chop the legs down, but sometimes I even add an additional kind of companion to the top of the table, which is what those little tiny bun legs are at the bottom of where the kitchen table was cut off, just so it doesn't look like, oh, she cut the table down. So all those little tiny details, I think really give just an interesting, but also a complete piece, which I think in this case worked very well actually. Over here on this chair, which actually George forgot to wash his feet when he came in. So he bound it on here earlier. So actually this is recently out of the washer and the dryer, but again, just for these muddy days, I do also have an extra layer of protection so that it's not a big deal to wash them, but I don't want to do it every day. Rumor has it that this might have been where 300 years ago, if not more, is where the original stairs to the middle floor were. Rightfully or wrongfully don't know, but it's now what I consider my altar. Again, this was another opportunity where I just really, I think in this case it's like, it was a pink paint, but it's like 90% diluted, so it's barely there. And I collect these figurines of Virgin Mary, and I mean, I really love them. I'm not a fully religious person. I grew up actually half Jewish, half Christian, but I do actually find having this moment of calm in my space. You know, they're quiet here. They're not like front and center. They're quiet, but nevertheless, they do give like a spiritual presence, and I'm very particular with the ones that I buy because to me, they're all about a peaceful energy. That's what they represent to me, of spirituality, of a peaceful energy. So I'm very careful with the facial expressions of these figurines, and for the most part, they're pale and they're white. So we've come upstairs to what I call the middle floor because I get very confused. Ground floor, first floor, because it means two different things depending whether you're in America or in England. So we're the floor above where we just were, and we're going to make our way to what I consider the wow room. So white on white with a little bit of pink. This room is just a beautiful scale and, you know, fairly high ceilings, not terribly high, but it just, there's a real grandness to this room, and it's a guest room. My stepdaughter, Eve, she often stays here, but so do many guests. Typically when guests arrive, unless I have a full house, I let them take their pick, and this is typically the room that, if it's available, that guests like. On this bed is from my couture collection. It's called Wild Garden, and it's Rose Majesty and pinks and yumminess. I often do actually layer a bed collection with a couple of different layers of bedding just as a mix and match thing, and I love this kind of just, maybe even a nod to the 20s, this lampshade. It's from the next collection. Perfect, lovely pink. Pink is the hardest color to get right. I tend not to like corals or salmons. I tend to like kind of a blue-pink, and after many tries, that's what we managed to do there. On this middle floor, there's actually a lot of fireplaces, non-working, and I think in the old days, or the California days, I would have taken them just to paint them out white, but they're actually kind of a handsome punctuation amongst all the femininity and all the white, so I sometimes decorate them. I put ballet shoes in them. I put flowers in them. Right now, it's just simple. You know, this was a farmhouse, so it wasn't designed to have a lot of ornateness, and I rather like that, actually, and I think even though some of my collections, whether it's my bedding or when I can have a twinkly chandelier, can be quite grand, I quite like the minimal and the simplicity of the original elements of the house. I did spend quite a lot of my budget on these reproduction radiators. I think I landed up buying 27 of them in all throughout the house, and they obviously serve a very strong purpose, and they really work well. This house is quite toasty, certainly throughout all the winter months, but I also love how they look. You know, sometimes the modern radiators, you kind of want to cover them and hide them, but they're just so beautiful. I tend to do summer curtains and winter curtains in this room because I do love kind of billowing linen ruffly curtains with a sunshine and a bit of breeze, but in the winter, I do put something that's a bit warmer. I have a lot of problems with curtains. From my California days, I kind of just had voile curtains literally with thumbtacks in the walls, so I really had to learn a lot about everything about curtains, their lining. It's an expensive decision, and I just find, especially with the linings, of whether it's blackout, whether it's for sound, whatever it might be for, that it really takes on, the fabric takes on a big difference, whether it's in a tone of color, depending upon the lining, or even how they drape, and so for my summer curtains, they're just back to my California days. George is obviously enjoying this lovely pink velvet little settee. Again, the perfect pink. These are original floors. Unlike the floors in the snug that I embraced the darkness, these were like a orangey color, and I was going to perhaps strip them, but then I really liked the idea of them being white, and I figured by the time you get upstairs, the mud on your boots or whatever is probably left downstairs, and so by the time you get up here, the white is gonna be protected. Again, some little bit of shabbiness in them, but part of the character. I think I've mentioned before that I do a lot of photo shoots in this house. It's really kind of, I mean I live here, it's my true life, but it's also a bit of a storybook, and so there's quite a lot of change that goes on the whole time, and just last week actually, I popped that wallpaper panels into that wardrobe, but sometimes when I do these things, I didn't really expect to think, oh, I really like that, so until the next time, they'll be there, but it's quite a nice idea that if you just want to break up a lot of whiteness, that you can just add fabric or wallpaper just for a little bit of interest, and in saying that, this room is a beautiful wow of white, but I just added a little bit of a subtle interest. I added this chair rail all the way around the room, and then I've for years been working with anaglypta paper, which comes in all different kinds of patterns. This is like a floral that comes also with geometric designs as well, but on top of that, you then can just paint over it. Originally, they were used a lot in British hallways and stuff, so kind of as a protection because you tend to paint them a little bit more glossy than you would the rest of the walls, and so when you're going up and down the stairs, it's just with that extra bit of gloss paint, it's just protective for that, so I've used this a lot in my design work. Add a chair rail, add the anaglypta paper, paint it a little bit glossy, and it's just a little nice, subtle bit of textural detail. I love, love, love this turquoise aqua dresser. It's got a little bit of like a folky type of engraving, which I just think is, it's just nice. Just really like it, and this has traveled through many of my different life experiences as far as homes go. This was a tissue box that Ben Pequiston, the gentleman who also does the little flowers on the floors and flowers on my arches, he also creates beautiful products that we sell at Shabby Chic, and I'm really happy to say, I don't want this to look like a plug, but I've got a line of lotions and potions coming out as well. Not a whole ton of closet space in this room. There are obviously, there's some shelves behind those doors, but I really love vintage wardrobe racks, and so that's what this serves at. Obviously, it's also housing some very sumptuous Soho House dressing gowns. I really love when my guests come for them to feel like they're in a home, but kind of luxury hotel qualities. So they get with this, and then as far as storage for guests go, might not work if it was actually somebody living in this room. I'd have to think up something a bit more permanent, but certainly for guests, this works really well. This is a, I was gonna say great little room, but it's a great big room, and it's very well appreciated. So I call this my leftover room. It's actually, I did actually go as far as having it plumbed to being an extra bathroom, because again, coming from California, most bedrooms have a bathroom en suite, and so I thought for the big wow room, it needed its own bathroom, but in actuality, there's a bathroom on this, in this middle floor level, and I don't often have all the rooms full, so I decided not to go to the further expense of actually making this a bathroom, and then it actually became a room where, I don't really know what to do with it, but I do a lot of photography myself for my own shoots, for my own company, and so this room is completely always in transition, so I call it the leftover room. On the odd occasion when I have had all my rooms filled with guests, it can also serve as an extra sleeping space, but you never know what you're gonna find in here, and there's something about the energy of this room that just feels beautiful, but nothing is permanent. Even to the point of the wallpaper, for example, this is Chinoiserie, it's from my wallpaper collection. I got so far, and then I thought, hmm, I actually like how the raw plaster pairs up with it, so let's just stop, and then, you know, these are actually my winter curtains for the Wow of White bedroom, so they look beautiful just as kind of in their in-between time, so I let them sit here, and again, of course, there's another lovely fireplace here. Here you can see where I've decorated it with just some ballet slippers casually. I haven't even gotten around to the floor. This is literally just plywood floor, plywood panels that I just painted, and for my purposes, for photo shoots and things, it serves its use perfectly, and another room that just has beautiful light. It's, you know, we're second floor up, so you definitely get that. Even the lampshade fixture, it easily, it's got, I think it's the fixture, I think it's called a spider, but you can just easily take the lampshade on and off, which is why I have all these extra lampshades here as well, depending upon what I'm photographing, so the whole beauty of this room is, like I say, it has nothing permanent to it. It's just this constant kind of flow of beauty, so it's a very, very great leftover room, so we're now in the guest room of the middle floor, which basically services two of the guest bedrooms, so my vision and my intent for all of the bathrooms, of which I think there were three slash four, was to, obviously, for them to feel really fresh and clean, but I also wanted to choose the elements and the materials so that they felt like they may, would have been there many years ago, so I kind of stayed somewhat traditionally, but maybe with a little bit of a fresh twist, depending upon whether you see blue or green, these very lovely, very pastel tiles that are then combined with these kind of quite white, icy tiles, all artisan, so they're subways, but they have a kind of a irregular edge, but then I did finish off the border with this lovely interest that has this very beautiful design to it, so I'm very happy, actually, with the vision that I had, and then, of course, these lovely mosaic floors as well. I really love the polished nickel finish, which is what I took throughout this whole bathroom, and then the lace curtains, going back to kind of the lessons I had to learn about curtains in general in an English country home and all that comes along with it, when I decided all that I wanted in here was just a little lace panel, I couldn't even find someone that could be bothered to make them, so I actually cut and hand-sewed them myself, hence why they don't really fit and they're a bit wonky, but they serve the purpose. Also, I'm a little bit of a stickler with fluffy towels, typically white, but there are bathrooms that I did introduce some color, but I just think, again, whether it's for myself or for guests, for them to be fluffy, I think is a real luxurious thing that isn't a massive expense. The light fixture here is one that, actually, I think it was in my daughter's house many, many years ago in California, always loved it, quite subtle, something else I needed to learn about the English codes is any light fixture in a bathroom has to be enclosed, so no twinkly chandeliers were allowed in here, but I got that little kind of feminine interest from having the hand painted on the globe and I also try and curve my, what can go a bit girly and a little bit feminine, I try and curve myself and I think for the most part, yes, this feels luxurious, it feels fresh, it feels traditional and not over girly, but I couldn't resist this little vanity mirror. It's actually, for a little mirror, it's got a lot going on, it's got a shelf, it's got a drawer, and it's got a mirror in itself. I kind of justified its prettiness and its frilliness because it's all a little bit crackled and a little bit, not broken, but it's worn around the edges, so I thought it's not kind of showing off its femininity, so I allowed that to kind of slip into my vision here. Love the little door handle. I mean, I like the juxtaposition that, you know, you might expect a much bigger handle on a door of this size, but I like the little petite size. I love the key lock here. All these little details, which to me, even like the catch closure here, all of these little details don't go unnoticed and when you actually have them, I think it's really great just to protect them and definitely embrace them and ultimately appreciate them. So another little moment of hand-painted flowers on the floorboards here. I wasn't so keen on the little dark squares, so I thought, well, let's celebrate them instead, and so there's a few of them sprinkled around on this landing as well as upstairs, and I think it does exactly that. It just celebrates them. Also, throughout the whole house, there's often a two-tone wall situation. Sometimes it's chair rail height. Sometimes it goes all the way up to here, so you'll see, and I'll definitely point out. In this instance, it's a chair rail height. This is what is called James White paint from Farron Ball. Sometimes it looks green. Sometimes it looks gray. In the lighting here in this hallway, which is really quite beautiful, I think it really looks like a pale green. I have embraced this imperfection. It's interesting working with tradesmen is sometimes they want to really restore things. They look perfect, and again, I'm about the cleanliness of something, but I'm also about embracing imperfection, so I said, no, leave that. As long as it can kind of look fresh and clean, just leave that alone. So these floors here were actually original, so that was kind of like my basis of the floors towards the end, which I did have to restore, so kind of continued that story. Most of the rugs throughout the whole house, bar a few, I actually found on Etsy. Etsy is my go-to for vintage rugs, especially runners. For some reason, maybe they're not very commercial, but if you just type in Ushak Runners on Etsy, they show up, and they're very affordable, and I kind of got two here that kind of speak to each other as far as palette, but I like the fact that they're not matchy-matchy, but I think the whole palette of the floor itself and the James White on the wall and then the rugs, I think, is just a beautiful, smooth beauty. So the second bedroom on the middle floor, guest room, is this bedroom, and a little bit smaller in scale than the larger room that we saw. Interestingly, a little bit more functional. It's got a whole bank of closets, and I don't know, it just seems to have more space to place things, but very charming little room. This bed actually had some interesting renovation, transformation. It used to be much narrower, so I had these four ends made to kind of give a wider. I think it's now close on being a queen. I think, again, queen beds here are different to queen beds in America, but I think this is considered a queen bed, and then I had it refinished to kind of tie into its original paintwork, and I think it's now really, really beautiful, but it wasn't always beautiful, but now it's a bit more functional, and then the bedding on this bed is called chinoiserie. It's from my next range, as well as I love to find vintage shams, which is what these are. I love them in white. I also sometimes dip them in some dye and make them pink or blue, so I think this is a really beautiful kind of whole juxtaposition of, you know, what could be considered a very feminine bed. It still obviously is, but the collection is quite toned down. These are all little leftover end tables that I bought over from America. Sit perfectly with a collection of lamps from Next, and back to my curtain lesson. I now have a made-to-measure curtain program, so I've had to learn the offerings of, again, the linings and the fabrics, whether it's linen, whether it's cotton, and how they drape, and this is one of the collections. It's called Hydrangea Natural. That's part of my made-to-measure curtain collection, and I think it's, I think they do look quite nice and vintagey, and then there's an armoire here that is actually, for those of you who have any of my books, you've seen this show up in multiple homes of mine, and I just think it's ironic that, again, when I sent over this container of all of my treasures from America, I had no idea what house it was going in, unless which room it was going in, but I just trusted all these beautiful things. Somehow, I'll put it together like a jigsaw puzzle. The fact that this, I mean, you can see it's only about an inch away from the ceiling, that this was always meant to be here. Another example of my kind of slightly taller, not quite chair rail-height, half-painted wall. Another dilution. I started off with a little bit stronger pink. Not purposely. I actually always wanted it to be just this dusty coat, but the light plays these crazy tricks, and so does the plaster finish itself, and so, even though I tested it, and had all these swatches, this whole side here had all kinds of little paint experiments, but when I actually put the paint up, it was just, ah, too bright, so, again, I diluted it, but I kind of like the pinky mauve to it, and, again, Geron, my friend, she also did this lovely kind of thoughtful, or in-thought ballerina, who just sits here beautifully over the radiator, and I guess this is a real signature of the beauty of imperfection. You know, it's, obviously, once upon a time, it was this beautiful green color. Underneath, it was cream, and I don't think you could ever recreate this without its just authentic, natural process of how it's lived its life, and I think if you tried to do it, it would seem too dramatic, but the fact that it's evolved in this way, I just think is absolutely spot-on. So, now, we're gonna go into my suite. Very fancy. So, this is my suite, a bedroom boudoir and a bathing space, or bathroom, and so, it's a little bit separate from the rest of the house. On the same floor as the middle floor, but it's just kind of tucked away here. I have a view of the front lawn, as well as the walled garden, and I've got a real kind of formula of how I work with my design in reference to my sleeping space. I need very little, as far as what my eyes see, because, of course, our bedrooms are the first thing we see in the morning and the last thing at night, so I very purposely have very little in my bedrooms, and so, all of my bedrooms over the years have looked very similar, whether they're big or little, they kind of have a similar palette. It's typically white, it's typically got some blues and pinks, but not very much. So, I actually got this bed from my friend, Perlo, who lives locally. You may have seen her show on the channel, and when I first bought it from her, I actually was living in a teeny little cottage in an attic, so I was really lucky that I could even fit it in. So, when I knew that I'd actually bought this property and I was gonna have space for it, it was really lovely, because now it's got this beautiful breathing space, and of course, you know, I very rarely have any other color on this bed other than white, but ruffles on ruffles on ruffles. I kind of refer to this, this is one of my couture collections, I refer to this as like a Marie Antoinette type of, very abundant type of design. And then George has his chair in here. I prefer not to have dogs in beds. I'm sure that's gonna create a lot of controversy, but he does have a very comfortable chair, so I think he's perfectly fine. My curtain lessons continued, and these curtains I absolutely adore. I actually went to a fabric warehouse, where you never know what you're gonna find, they don't keep stuff in stock, it comes and it goes, and I kind of had in my mind that I was looking for like some blush pink silk dupioni. They didn't have that, but they had this teal, and I just absolutely love how they came out, and again, because of the lining, they kind of have this lovely ball gown-y structure to them, so the color's perfect, the curtain poles were here when I purchased the home, and even though everything here is white, I quite like the juxtaposition of the anchor of the darker rods, which kind of tie into the beam, so that's a bit of a rustic element amongst all the abundance and the luxury. So with the vastness of the wall space here, knowing that I wanted to keep white, and I wanted to keep it with a real sense of kind of serene serenity, any kind of embellishments I knew needed to be quite subtle, and so we did this, or Ben did this lovely rubbed-back stencil, and then I said, let's also do some florals, but actually the florals were all too much, other than that one little bouquet over there that kind of just tossed flowers, kept that, but then between the stencil and the one-tossed flower and the sconces felt like plenty of interest. Now, sconces, I have quite a struggle with, just because you probably noticed, you know, with mirrors, with anything of substance that is kind of a statement, I just like to move things around. It's just my thing, so most of my mirrors are leaning or resting. Very rarely do I put a nail in a wall, but I did feel like this fireplace isn't going anywhere, so I think I felt like I could commit to the placement of these sconces. This chandelier, funnily enough, I look at that obviously every day and night in my bed, thinking I really do need to restring those, the beads, and it really needs help. It's beautiful, but it just needs a little bit of repair, but it's fine. Until I get to it, it works well. In this room, with my liking to have a border of two-tone paint, I kind of changed it up a little bit rather than having the chair rail where it joined. I did more from dropping down the ceiling, and this is just a mix of all-white paint and Wimborne, I believe, is on the walls there, and this room has a generous amount of closet space for me in here, plus when we go through into my boudoir, you'll see that there is plenty of space in there as well, but it's a really beautiful room. Again, like the whole house, the light is just magical, especially when there's double-aspect windows, and more rugs from Etsy, of course, on the white-painted floors. So now we're in my boudoir, and just how glorious is it? Of course, what really sets the stage here is this raw plaster, and it's just got this beautiful pink patina where it's more and more and more dried. It gets paler and paler. It's actually quite a signature finish here in the English countryside. I definitely didn't think this one up myself. I saw it at other homes that I've been to, but what I love about it in this particular space is, you know, boudoir is something very glamorous and very girly, and of course, you know, the crystal chandelier or the vanity here, but I love the juxtaposition of this kind of raw finish with the juxtaposition of twinkles and carving, so it's very beautiful. I continue the white-painted floors from my bedroom into here. As you can see, George is very comfortable on this beautiful, beautiful crochet rug, which actually, again, is with my next partnership, and I found this vanity from my friend locally here. She has a store called Lark Vintage. I found this way before I had found the house. Not really sure what I was thinking because you don't always have a space for something this large, but I just thought, it'll go somewhere, and it definitely serves an amazing function because it's got eight drawers and, of course, the mirror, so all of my toiletries fit very perfectly there. I would say about this room that it really deserves someone that really pampers, you know, lots of makeup and doing your hair and having your jewelry to put on, whatever goes into pampering, and I'm a little bit of a simple girl. I can powder my nose and find some lip gloss, so sometimes I kind of think, oh, I wonder who the prior person was that sat in front of that mirror. I wonder what that experience was. And again, even going down to my cowboy boots, which is nine times out of 10 what I wear every day, whether it's for a glamorous occasion or just around the farm, you know, probably next to that vanity, maybe there were stilettos or some types of shoes that are a bit more polished than mine. What I really like about this window area are just these, again, kind of speaking a little bit to the rawness of the plaster. These curtains don't even fit the curtain pole. They're very kind of just thrown up there. Another moment that was actually supposed to be temporary, but now it's like, oh, they work, they're pretty, they're fine, so they get to stay. The bathing space of my suite. I, for whatever reason, however big my houses have been, I've always had these small little bathrooms. In fact, when I first left home, I had a little bedsit that was a communal bathroom and you had to put money in the meter to even use the bathroom. So this is a really glamorous situation for me. And my vision for it was, you know, I've stayed in really nice hotels over my career and I thought I want to pull together all those really beautiful elements that one experiences when you're in a hotel. So of course, a beautiful big bathtub, walk-in shower, pedestal, sink, and just all the other embellishments, fluffy towels, beautiful marble floor. Truthfully, originally, these tiles were the palest, palest, palest pink you've ever seen. At least it's how these pale, pale tiles looked downstairs on my table as I was putting it together. When they got installed, Barbie pink. Something to do with the light, I don't know what. And so let me tell you, chipping this panel of Barbie pink tiles was not an easy feat. It wasn't as simple as repainting the wall, but it was just crazy how bright they were. So now we have something a little bit more traditional. You know, I certainly love these kind of lacy traditional tiles. I got them from a company called Original Style. The marble and then the bath and the sink is all from a company called Fired Earth. But I'm still working through all these little teeny bathrooms that I've had in my past homes, as I said, are quite small. And every single night, it's my ritual to have a bath. In three years, I've been in that bath maybe 10 times. It's a beautiful bath. It's a comfortable bath. There's just something about the palatialness of all of this that I just haven't quite found my connection with. So I'm thinking about that on more of a philosophical level of, you know, you can certainly build and create things that is what you think your own dream is and certainly what other people's dreams are. This magazine has been well published. But it's also a good idea to kind of check into where your comfort zone is. I don't know what I would have done differently, truthfully, because this is a grade two listed house. And it's not like I could have changed the walls and made them smaller. And maybe I'll find the solution.