Country Living UK Modern Rustic 19

While Modern Rustic often showcases spectacular houses in incredible settings, this issue is testament to the fact that such a distinctive look is all about how people cleverly mix elements to achieve a home decorated with style and character while also being ecologically aware, embracing sustainability and eschewing high-end design and big budgets. Kay Prestney, for example, turned a 1980s village house into a home filled with stories, reclaiming and recycling furnishings wherever possible. Her property’s interior has been given a unique and individual edge, combining her eye for a bargain with natural finds and an ingenuity at crafting. Rebecca Proctor and Andrew Wightman left the city and their careers behind to set up home in Cornwall and live the good life in an old slate-faced cottage, slowly decorating the house…

Packaging can be seductive stuff – it lures us into buying everything from stationery to soaps. Tabitha Bargh freely admits to an obsession with packaging at its most fundamental. As a student at Ravensbourne College of Design and Communication (now Ravensbourne University), her table was permanently submerged by eggboxes and cardboard. And when she got a job in a Brighton design and lighting shop (after several years making props for venues including Glyndebourne and the Millennium Dome), each time a new product was delivered to the store, the packaging excited her almost as much as the item itself. For Tabitha, it’s more than a finishing touch: what fascinates her is the material itself – the texture of cardboard, the construction, the pattern formed by the corrugated edge. She took some home,…