There was some work to be done, of course. ‘The house is right next to a lake, and it’s lower than the lake, so when our client took it over, it was terribly damp,’ says Henriette. The first task, therefore, was to dry it all out, insulate it properly and put in new floors and panelling, making it habitable and cosy. ‘That was a big hurdle–it was incredibly time-consuming and complicated,’ she continues. But once that was done, the decoration was a more straightforward matter.
‘The family uses this house as a weekend retreat–it’s really a place to get away,’ Henriette says. ‘They wanted it to be comfortable and simple, and to avoid complications and over-decoration. In some spaces you can just have too much–too many fabrics, too many frills. Instead we wanted to use a few amazing things that were carefully chosen, and only as much of them as we really needed. For example, where we could do blinds instead of curtains, we did blinds, and made sure always to take the more minimal approach.’
An antique hand-painted console table stands in the hallway.
Simon Upton
As an example of this low-intervention approach, the owners wanted to keep the charmingly old-fashioned kitchen, so Henriette and her team renovated it, put a new marble counter in, added in a slim island to provide more storage. They painted it in a soft, inviting yellow, custom mixed for the space by Rose of Jericho.
In most of the other rooms, a few key exquisite fabrics anchor each scheme. ‘Our client loves antique fabrics,’ Henriette explains. ‘We also used a lot of Chelsea Textiles and had some custom-embroidered fabrics made.’ These were set against a backdrop of more custom colours by Rose of Jericho. ‘The light is unique in this house, so that off the shelf colours don’t work. We wanted that old-fashioned chalky feel to them.’
The curtains are in Robert Kime’s ‘Arles Linen’. The pair of lamps on the antique tables are from Jamb, with shades from Robert Kime. An antique console table also from Jamb stands in the foreground.
Simon Upton