25 Beautiful Homes August 2019

The mood of the moment is powerful and positive. In interiors, anyway. Colour and pattern have come to the fore, giving rise to confident interiors that have a strong look. I am thrilled about this step change. While I still love neutral, calm spaces, it is great to see well-designed off-beat homes in the mix. As I have said before, at 25BH we firmly believe in showing you variety – as long as they are real homes with passionate owners. We love imaginative projects, such as lighting designer Esther Patterson’s conversion in Derbyshire that’s full of eclecticism and vintage finds (page 58), as much as gorgeously simple Scandinavian-style houses, such as our dreamy cover story (page 104). With a light, bright vibe, this truly is an idyllic retreat. From this…

The mood of the moment is powerful and positive. In interiors, anyway. Colour and pattern have come to the fore, giving rise to confident interiors that have a strong look. I am thrilled about this step change. While I still love neutral, calm spaces, it is great to see well-designed off-beat homes in the mix. As I have said before, at 25BH we firmly believe in showing you variety – as long as they are real homes with passionate owners. We love imaginative projects, such as lighting designer Esther Patterson’s conversion in Derbyshire that’s full of eclecticism and vintage finds (page 58), as much as gorgeously simple Scandinavian-style houses, such as our dreamy cover story (page 104). With a light, bright vibe, this truly is an idyllic retreat. From this…

When designer and artist Gunnel Sahlin and her partner Håkan viewed a former schoolhouse in Sörmland, just an hour’s drive away from Stockholm, she instantly felt drawn to the history and provenance of the building and, in particular, the light-filled school hall. ‘What could be more suitable for an artist than a house where you can feel the creativity in the building and benefit from the most incredible light from such enormous windows,’ explains Gunnel, who specialises in glass design. ‘The old school hall, with its nine magnificent windows, is everything you could possibly wish for in a studio, and the two handmade tables in the middle of the room provide ample space for my various projects. It’s such a nourishing environment to work in.’ FAVOURITE FEATURE ‘The nine big windows in…

When designer and artist Gunnel Sahlin and her partner Håkan viewed a former schoolhouse in Sörmland, just an hour’s drive away from Stockholm, she instantly felt drawn to the history and provenance of the building and, in particular, the light-filled school hall. ‘What could be more suitable for an artist than a house where you can feel the creativity in the building and benefit from the most incredible light from such enormous windows,’ explains Gunnel, who specialises in glass design. ‘The old school hall, with its nine magnificent windows, is everything you could possibly wish for in a studio, and the two handmade tables in the middle of the room provide ample space for my various projects. It’s such a nourishing environment to work in.’ FAVOURITE FEATURE ‘The nine big…

Following her dream of living in the countryside, Melissa Jones was convinced there had been a typing error on the estate agent details about the amount of land that came with the Georgian house she’d fallen in love with. ‘It said 60 acres, but I thought they meant six, so we drove out to see it, only to discover that it was correct,’ she says. ‘And the property included two areas of ancient woodland that would need specialist care.’ But Melissa and her partner, Jeremy Hewlett, weren’t deterred. ‘This was 13 years ago and we had two small children: Harry, now 18, and Ottilie, now 16, and we wanted to bring our family up in the country. We’re all horse-mad, so we were looking for somewhere with enough space for stables.’ Originally…

Georgia and James Broome took design cues from a collection of varied and exciting times they had enjoyed while living in Brixton, Dubai and Toronto, plus Georgia’s childhood in the South of France, when they finally settled in their first family home in Oxfordshire. ‘I couldn’t wait to decorate and properly unpack all our belongings we’d collected over time,’ says Georgia, a furniture upcycler and interiors blogger at homemadeproductions.co.uk. The couple bought the property a few years ago after finding a bilingual school for their children, Olivia, seven, and Charlotte, five, who are fluent in French. At first, Georgia wasn’t interested in viewing this house, put off by a questionable loft conversion and side extension that didn’t meet building regulations. ‘By then we’d had offers rejected on six other properties and…