Design Details: Beautiful Rooms
Where I take a look at a beautiful room from my Saved file and work out why and how it works, plus how we can get the look. This week, we're looking at Kate Watson-Smyths rather glorious kitchen.
Last year, I started an occasional Wednesday series where I looked at inspirational rooms and we worked out how and why they work. It is extremely hard sometimes to look at a space and work out what to do with it, especially if it’s a difficult shape or you just don’t know where to start. A few weeks ago I posted a series of images on my Instagram account of rooms that I have on my Pinterest board and it very quickly became the most popular post I’ve had in about two years. We LOVE to be inspired by other people’s living spaces. The images that I posted were simple ideas but ones that could be applied to any home without huge expense or investment - paint colours, tiles, shelving, vintage additions, storage inspiration. It’s easy to look at pictures of beautiful houses and think that they’re unachievable, but often it’s the simplest of ideas that can make the biggest impact. Take a stairway bookshelf, for example. Or shelves built around a doorway. A vintage rug on a wooden floor. Seeing how others create can be so helpful when planning out your own home, whatever your budget.
A while ago, we talked about Bianca Halls dining room which is a really good example of a well put together space. The wall hung sideboard made from IKEA units that she updated with MDF doors and paint. The colour pop bookshelf, the inclusion of vintage pieces and cleverly hung art makes this room achievable without a huge budget. And a few weeks ago, Malcolm Beggs kitchen was the perfect example of a chic space that was designed using affordable products but which has the ‘Devol feel’ without the expense.
We moved into our rental home just before Christmas and I transferred what was in the previous dining room pretty much straight into this one. However, a few months of living here made me realise that the pieces I’d put in didn’t work quite as well as they did in the last house so I looked at it carefully to work out why. The rug was too dark for a room with little natural light; the table felt too big for the space. I spent last weekend reassessing it - I changed the heavy Persian red rug for the lighter large jute one that was in my office and it immediately felt better. The dark room needed a lighter flooring to lift it. I switched the table to a different position - vertical instead of horizontal to the entrance door - and moved the benches out before replacing them with vintage chairs that I had used in the old courtyard space which added colour and texture. The space had plenty of potential, I just wasn’t taking advantage of it. It now feels completely different, much lighter and brighter - just simple changes but a huge difference to the way the room feels. Knowing why something works and why it doesn’t can really help you plan out your spaces.
This week we’re looking at a glorious kitchen belonging to author, consultant and journalist Kate Watson-Smyth. Kate and her husband sold their family home a few years ago and bought their current one plus an Italian villa in Turin which she painstakingly renovated and brought back to it’s former glory (she runs amazing interior design retreats there btw, you can find out more by tapping here or you can read all about it in this feature which appeared in YOU Magazine). And I am 100% sure you will already be subscribing to Kate’s Mad About The House Substack - she’s also written five interior books and is interior columnist at Red magazine.
Right, let’s start with some photographs of the space.
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