Interior Design
Putting the Fun in Functional
We have always felt that the interior of a holiday home needs to be three things at once – practical, comfortable and visually appealing – not always the easiest things to achieve! Creating the sense of a single space between the inside and outside helps with the feeling of being unbounded but it also means that choices for fabrics and furniture need to be carefully made as they have to be a bit more resilient!
In the kitchen we have chosen a combination of wooden bar stools from Case (comfortable and rugged) together with the classic Vitra Eames dining chair. These are our favourite choice for anything to do with food and children! They are fun (a multitude of colours to pick from) and wipe clean, as well as being a good, comfortable chair.
To compliment the light oak flooring a light wood table (with rounded edges to avoid hurting little heads) was on our list. The 1960’s Ercol Grand Windsor fitted the bill exactly – the beautiful elm finish is warm and works well with the oak, as well as the Eames chairs.
Another benefit of solid wood furniture is that it picks up patina rather than marks and complete disasters can always be sanded out (our kids have already added some of their unique ‘patina’ to it).
The soft furnishings in the lounge are a more contemporary choice – Fritz Hansen designer Jamie Hayon penned the Ro chair design in the 2013 (with its sister Fri chair being located in the guest double bedroom above the lounge), and the Ligne Roset Facett chair (R & E Bouroullec) from the early 2000’s. Both are great for curling up in!
The desk and bookcase are both part of the Case furniture range and provide a geometrical theme to room.
Colour and shape
The fun of furniture !
One of the joys of being on holiday is, after after an action packed day of activity, collapsing into a comfortable chair with a mug of tea and the paper!
Our choice of chairs are a mix of fabulous design but practical comfort that you will want to sink into again and again.
The photographs are all taken from the private collection of a friend who is a photographer, and because of the strong links with the Cornwall (the St. Ives movement) and their vibrance we have used Sir Terry Frost works to add additional splashes of colour to the walls upstairs and down.
The bedside lamps are designed and produced in the UK by Nick Hammond – and in the double bedrooms have a fab addition in the form of blue tooth light bulbs. This means you can connect your phone to the light and listen to your favourite music or radio program in bed!
Handmade
heaven
The round mirrors in the double bedrooms and downstairs loo are made by a friend in Bristol.
They are solid walnut and have such a gorgeous colour and grain– we just love the warmth of the wood and the fact that they remind us of a ship’s porthole!
The smaller bedrooms both have feature walls courtesy of Murals Wallpaper. The bunk room has wonderful map of the world to set children’s imagination alight (complete with pirates and sea monsters) whilst the twin room has a laid back beach theme. Both rooms have their own art work featuring Bristol artists – the bunk room has several fun hand drawn prints from an artist very local to us, whilst the twin room has prints featuring the Lido in Bristol.
We had real fun choosing the fabrics for the curtains, which was made easy for us with the help of Rebecca from Ionada. The Tiki Tiki Carnival print in the master bedroom is from Andrew Martin and is a riot of colour. More restrained shades are found in the guest double – the cool shades and shapes complimenting the Terry Frost artwork. Making the curtain for the run of windows in the kitchen was a Herculean task not only in the dimensions of the curtain (coming in at a shade under 6 metres in length) but Rebecca also had to contend with the fact that we had set our hearts on a fabric that it turned out had just been discontinued. She needed 13 square metres to do the job but there were only 12 square metres of fabric left in existence. Using cunning hem work that looks like deliberate colour accenting she came up with a solution which we think makes the kitchen look a million dollars. The living room needed a more toned down solution for its fabric and again we went for an Andrew Martin material in a denim blue stripe. Its pastel stripes (pinks, blues and creams) are quite soothing but also remind us of an old fashioned stick of rock!
If you want any more details about where we found any of the items in the Beach House please let us know and we will do our best to fill you in on where to go or who to contact.
Ionaida Soft Furnishings, Cleeve, N. Somerset 01275 465057 or 07854 525472