A creative producer with stints at Tatler and Art & Commerce under her belt, lessons learnt throughout Camilla’s career have informed much of her taste, particularly when it comes to scheming. ‘I am probably the mood-boarder. I always go into things with a visual idea in mind and I knew exactly how I wanted the rooms to look before we started.’ Did they turn out how she anticipated? ‘Mostly,’ she says wryly. ‘Without question those jobs have informed my taste. Being in Vogue House alongside House & Garden and World of Interiors I managed to collect a lot of scrap fabrics. There are so many pieces I was holding on to that I knew I’d be able to use some day. Many of them have become sink skirts or found other uses. Of course, there were some I picked up aged 23 that I look at and think… I’m not sure what I really had in mind there!’
Truly a labour of love, Camilla and Ed have painted, tiled and revamped the cottage by hand, crafting their dream house slowly but surely. ‘I always knew my husband was handy, but it seems like there’s nothing he can’t do. I would send him references of things I loved and by the time I came home from work he would have done it perfectly.’ Take the decorative painting on the stairs, for example, which was painted freehand with no practice. Some people, it would seem, are just gifted. ‘He’s really taught me that if you want to do something yourself you can just learn to do it. It takes patience but every job is doable.’ Not quite finished with his paintbrush, Camilla’s husband is now working on a set of Delft tiles.
Camilla has papered the ceiling in ‘Toile De Jouy’ wallpaper in Coral by Lucie Annabel. The candelabras were sourced through Oculus.
James Merrell
As for Camilla, what did she learn throughout the process? ‘Well, two things. First, almost every error can be concealed. In the kitchen, we wanted to house the sink in an old French school table and we agonised over getting the hole perfect, but once you’ve put the silicone around the perimeter, you can’t see the lines and it doesn’t matter anyway! The second thing is that, when you do up your own house, you become so obsessed with getting everything perfect that you start to notice every error in other people’s homes. But the thing is, these tiny things have never mattered to you before and don’t take away from your experience in that space.’
Ultimately, this cottage sings because Camilla and her husband embraced, rather than fought, its character. ‘There are no straight lines and nothing is perfect, so it doesn’t matter if the things in it aren’t quite right either. It’s a higgledy-piggledy house and that’s okay.’