House Guest by Country & Town House | Interior Designer Interviews

This week, we chat to Freya Simms, who is heading up LAPADA, a fair in Berkeley Square showcasing jewellery, silver, art and antiques, opening on 27 September.

We're kicking off a new series of House Guest with Jules Haines, founder of the textile resale platform Haines. Jules is on a mission to tackle waste in the textile industry by working with designer brands to resell their surplus and deadstock fabric. The Haines platform now offers a huge selection of products, from gorgeous fabrics to cushions made from offcuts destined for landfill. Tune in for more.

Today we're revisiting a chat with Emma Manners, the Duchess of Rutland, who lives in one of Britain’s most magnificent stately homes: Belvoir Castle. The Duchess chats to Carole about her journey from running around on a Welsh farm as a child to running a 200-room stately home when she married the 11th Duke of Rutland 30 years ago. As a keen decorator, she gives an insight into how she stamped her personality onto the private areas of the house and how looking after fabrics and wallpapers in the State Rooms requires a delicate hand.

This week, we're revisiting our chat with Emma Sims Hilditch, an interior designer who grew up in a creative home where her mother loved to follow decorating trends, from 70s swirls to 80s swags. Emma inherited her mother’s creative gene, but, ‘I wouldn’t follow a trend,’ she says, ‘because if you’re not careful trends move on and then you’re stuck’. As well as discussing her book, 'The Evolution of Home,' with Giles Kime – a fascinating dive into how English country house style has changed – she offers tips on how to bring atmosphere into a house (you need a multi-faceted approach) and why the dining room is back in fashion but not in its traditional guise. Tune in for more.

This week we're revisiting a favourite podcast with one of the best production designers of his generation: Lee Broom. Lee is one of the UK’s leading furniture and lighting designers and a premium global design brand. His Crystal Bulb launched one of his earliest designs and was an instant hit, making him a darling of the design world and one who has continued to reach new heights with everything he does. Tune in for more.

This week we are revisiting an old favourite: an interview with garden designer Richard Miers before last year's RHS Chelsea Flower Show. He ended up with the People's Choice award for his Love Garden. Tune in to hear all about how to design a garden fit for the famous Flower Show.

From aviation law to interior design, Noor Charchafchi made a significant career change and launched a successful design business, Celine Interior Design, while also bringing up three children. She is passionate about the impact of good interiors on people’s lives. Her Iraqi heritage also plays an important role: ‘l feel 100% Iraqi and 100% English rather than 50% of anything’, she tells Carole Annett. Tune in for more, including how to design amazing kids' bedrooms.

What should you look for when buying a new sofa? How do you test comfort and longevity? Carole Annett sits down on a perfectly plumped cushion with Amanda Barrett of British furniture maker George Smith to talk sofas, seat depth, wooden frames, duck feathers, colour and craftsmanship. Tune in for more.

My House Guest today is Karen Barlow of The Old Potato Store, which specialises in sourcing decorative antique and vintage furniture and accessories that make a space feel individual and personal. We chat about the best hunting ground - which fairs and boot sales are best for sourcing, what to look for and also how to photograph and style your finds if you want to sell them on.

Sustainability is at the forefront of her business - but, as a designer, aesthetics are everything. ‘If something is useful and beautiful, I believe that it can be reused or repurposed,’ she says. Inspired by salvage designers such as Retrouvius, she and her husband renovated their home using mainly reclaimed and vintage finds.

The Old Potato Store is located in a former Victorian, stone floored building in Manchester. It was previously owned by the local Allotment Society from 1901. Tune in for more.

My House Guests this week are James Arkoulis and Saskia Howard of Howark Design. Launched five years ago and based in Chiswick, Howark Design creates characterful and timeless interiors with an emphasis  on  practical and charming design. The focus of our chat is rugs - what to buy, how to choose, what colours work best and how to use in an interior setting. “Having a very saturated rug (with colour) in a space can be draining,”says Saskia, “and scale is important.” They suggest buying rugs early on in a project, “it’s an investment,”says James, “buy well and it will give joy for years to come.”Howark Design has a small rug collaboration with Holmes Bespoke. Tune in for more.

My House Guest today is Harry Triggs who, along with Andrew Molyneux, set up TM Lighting in 2012. They design and manufacture LED products for private residences, stately homes and galleries. “With the right lighting you can lead the eye in an interior to focus on a beautiful object and, like lighting a subject on a stage in a theatrical performance, lighting a house or restaurant is the same”. We chat about the best ways to light art, colours of light, light distribution and why LED light is the most energy-efficient - a fascinating dive into illuminating the home. Tune in for more

My House Guest today is Luke Deering, an art director, artist and occasional product designer whose work in the art department includes Spiderman and The Crown.
“It is an area of artistry that’s not often spoken about or understood,” says Luke. We chat about the craftsmanship and collaboration behind a set like a fire-damaged Windsor Castle. Working for the Oscar-winning production designer Martin Childs and with art director Chris Wyatt. Luke and the team designed the ravaged interior with blackened floors, half-destroyed paintings and twisted timber. “Everything starts with the script,” according to Luke, and then drawings, sketches, models… until everyone is happy. A painstaking process and fascinating to hear all about it. Tune in for more.

This is our CHRISTMAS SPECIAL podcast - the last of the year and I have gathered two good friends - Martin and Jay of Martin Hulbert Design. We met at the Dorchester Collection’s country outpost, Coworth Park in Ascot. Martin Hulbert Design has been instrumental in its rebirth from a dilapidated private house to a sumptuous hotel and polo venue.

Their most recent tweaking has been to the Adam Smith restaurant, Woven, which is pure MHD - a cosy and imaginative interior with original artwork and clever lighting. Martin and Jay share stories of creating the interior from finding a paper-maché sculptor for serving tables, to the carrot and turnip-strewn plaster-cast artwork (which involved a trip to the local vegetable market). Tune in for more and Happy Christmas to all. Thank you for your support for The House Guest podcast and we look forward to being back next year with a starry array of guests.

My House Guest this week is interior designer Charlotte Elizabeth of Charlotte Elizabeth Interiors, who divides her time between London and the South of France. She is about to celebrate her first Xmas as a married woman. We sat down for a natter about preparing the house for Xmas, ideas for decorating the tree, table dressing and what to forage from the garden. We also mention Emily Ayres’ Design by Nature which signals a different approach to floristry, using only dried flowers as a sustainable alternative to fresh.

Tune in for more.

My House Guest this week is someone I have known and admired for many years and, full disclosure, who helped me on a house project a few years ago. Interior designer Emma Sims Hilditch grew up in a creative home where her mother loved to follow decorating trends, from 70s swirls to 80s swags. Emma inherited her mother’s creative gene but, ‘I wouldn’t follow a trend,’ she says, ‘because if you’re not careful trends move on and then you’re stuck’. We chat over coffee in Emma’s London home she shares with husband John, founder with his business partner Giles, of the successful Neptune furniture company. The conversation rolls from Nick Kamen’s famous Levi 501 launderette advert (if you’re too young to remember then Google it) which Emma worked on while assisting film producer Ridley Scott in her first job, then moving from London to Wiltshire and starting a family along with a curtain-making company, to how her own business grew alongside John’s.
She has just launched her first book - The Evolution of Home, with Giles Kime, a fascinating dive into how English country house style has changed. Tune in for more including great tips on how to bring atmosphere into a house (you need a multi-faceted approach) and why the dining room is back in fashion but not in its traditional guise.

My House Guest today is Caryn Hibbert, a lady for whom I have the utmost admiration. Following a career in obstetrics and gynaecology where she specialised in cervical cancer, she moved to the Cotswolds with her husband in order to raise her children in the countryside. They found a house in Southrop and after a few years of bedding in and enjoying a quieter pace of life, some local barns came up for sale. Deciding to buy and restore them and having always been a foodie, she decided to create a cookery school - Thyme at Southrop was born and now includes a hotel, restaurant, spa, boutique and a homeware brand, Bertoli. Her latest venture brings in her medical background. Caryn has always been fascinated by breathing, having studied women giving birth, how the correct breathing can help the body and how we breathe inefficiently when we are anxious. With well-being in mind, she has created a Breathing Bothy, a special hammam-style building with moulded resin interiors (Caryn oversees all the interiors and garden design at Thyme). Being a passionate gardener, she also created a special balm using herbs from the water meadow, which is the scent used in the bothy. Tune in for more and discover how to breathe...

In the run up to Christmas we have some special guests and this week it is hospitality guru, Olga Polizzi talking about her own 3-hotel collection, The Polizzi collection, as well as her role at Rocco Forte hotels where she is deputy Chairman and director of Design. She says of Hotel Endsleigh in Devon, ‘I bought it with my heart rather than my head,’ and of her first hotel, The Tresanton in Cornwall, which is about to celebrate its 25th birthday, ‘It’s been the most fun thing I’ve done but the agony, the excitement the tears… we used to watch Fawlty Towers on tv after an exhausting day and laugh and laugh thinking “this is us!”’.
Tune in for more

I am in awe of people who follow a dream and Karl O’Hanlon did just that after leaving London and a secure job to head to France to a place he and his wife Anita had always loved - the Languedoc. His dream was to venture into the hospitality industry and after an initial false start, in 2008, Domaine & Demeure was born - three beautiful wine estates brought back to life with a discerning eye and a passion for design.

I visited Karl at his latest venture - Chateau just outside Narbonne a small hotel and wine estate with 44 villas (mostly now privately owned) available for rental. Staying here you get the charm and authenticity of a working wine estate, and the style, service and laid-back ambience of a private club. It’s fascinating to hear how it all came together. ‘For us it was important that the whole estate is integrated into the environment and that we contribute to its ongoing development”, says Karl. That means creating a landscape without using chemical or irrigation (Languedoc is renowned for its dry countryside which gives the wine its minerality). One of the commitments to the local community was that they wd not use irrigation hence he engaged award-winning garden designer James Basson and plantsman and botanist Olivier Filippi, ‘a legendary figure when it comes to ‘dry gardening’” explains Karl. Karl designed the interiors of the villas using polished concrete (often used in wine estates) and colours of the landscape. One of my favourite features, his idea for using olive trees instead of sun umbrellas by the pool - ’so much nicer reading under the shade of a tree,’ he says. Tune in for more

Mike Fisher founded Studio Indigo in 2005 and it now employs over 50 interior designers and architects. 

He says, 'Architects are often monochromatic and rather restrained in their use of colour. I soon realised the architect wasn’t most important person and if I wanted to be in control, I had to be an interior designer too’.
Mike chats to host Carole Annett about choosing colour in a northern climate such as the UK, how to use colour to make a statement and how one of their projects for a Scandinavian client involved a brave choice - a mustard-lacquer sitting room (the client loved it). They also discuss paint finishes and why some paint brands have a reputation for being difficult to apply. Mike offers lots of colour and paint choosing tips as well as wonderful insider stories including installing a dog lift in his London house for his much-loved pooches. He also has a new book out by Vendome Press - Studio Indigo, Architecturally Creative Interiors.
Tune in for more

Today’s House Guest podcast is with Buchanan Studio - Angus and wife Charlotte set up their eponymous studio specialising in interior design, event and set design, creative direction and branding. Originality is at the core of everything they do. “We encourage clients to be brave’, explains Angus who worked as an assistant to fashion photographer Mario Testino before moving into set design alongside Michael Howells. ‘I walked onto a Versace set Michael had created for a Madonna shoot and thought, “This is for me”.

Angus runs the creative side while Charlotte wears the organisational, business hat. Projects include Wild By Tart restaurant in Eccleston yard, the branding and launch of Della Vite Prosecco (a project with the Delevingne sisters) the Studio Chair (one of the most photographed chairs of last year) and a fabric collection.

Emma Manners the Duchess of Rutland lives in one of Britain’s most magnificent stately homes, Belvoir Castle. The Duchess chats to Carole about her journey from running around on a Welsh farm as a child to running a 200-room stately home when she married the 11th Duke of Rutland 30 years ago. As a keen decorator, she gives an insight into how she stamped her personality onto the private areas of the house and how looking after fabrics and wallpapers in the State Rooms requires a delicate hand. Belvoir Castle’s stand in as Windsor Castle in the upcoming season 5 of The Crown - The Duchess prefers to keep out of the way during filming, which she describes as ‘a long process’. Her joy is in the gardens - she is so hands-on, she earned the nickname ‘Digger Duchess”. Emma's new book is out now - The Accidental Duchess. Tune in for more

The next House Guest in our ‘How To’ series is Anthony Barzilay Freund of 1stDibs talking about how to buy online. Anthony Barzilay Freund is editorial director and director of fine art at the online marketplace interior designer Duncan Campbell of Campbell Rey, calls ‘eBay for serious antiques’. Anthony chats to Carole Annett about how 1stDibs was founded, how it has become a go-to tool for the interior design trade and the fascination of seeing trends emerge. Tune in for more.

Born and raised in Vicenza, Italy and then moved to New York City to start her career in design, Manuela Hamilford first cut her teeth at Bergdorf Goodman, working within luxury Italian home furnishings. She gained a flair for interior design and after heading back to London in 2000 she launched her own interior design studio, Hamilford Design. Manuela has created many beautiful projects over the last twelve years, noting a change in how children’s bedrooms are designed - the kids are now in control requesting theatre-style dressing rooms and gaming chairs. Tune in for more.

Today we are looking back at one of my favourite House Guest podcasts - the dreamy Martyn Lawrence Bullard. One of the most talented and entertaining people i have met, I met up with Martyn in Paris in 2019 to chat about how he conquered the celebrity world to become their go-to interior designer. He relates delicious stories about Cher’s bathroom and working with the Kardashian clan. I’m also delighted to say this is one of the podcasts that you can tune into on British Airways inflight entertainment (click on the Audio section and you’ll find us on board). Enjoy.

Welcome to the first episode of this new 'How To' series of House Guest where Country & Town House Magazine's Interiors Editor Carole Annett chats with experts from the world of interior design and decoration. 'Rattan makes a statement in an understated way, which is why i think it's so glamorous,' says Louise Roe of Sharland England. In this week's House Guest episode, Louise gives tips on how to decorate with rattan and explains why she fell in love with this most sustainable of materials. A journalist by trade - she has worked with Vogue.com and In-style and is the weekly fashion presenter on This Morning, Louise's love of rattan was inspired by her Argentine grandmother (Sharland was her maiden name) who, 'had great style, was a bit rebellious and occasionally naughty'. Louise loves the nostalgia of rattan, its warmth and colour and explains how to use it in a modern home. 'Going too old-fashioned makes an interior look like a tv set and that's not ideal,' she says. Tune in for more.

Welcome to episode 158 of the House Guest podcast, where Country & Town House Magazine's Interiors Editor Carole Annett chats with experts from the world of interior design and decoration. My House Guest this week is Tom Dixon, known as a restless innovator who rose to prominence in the mid-1980s as a maverick, untrained designer with a line in welded salvage furniture. While working with the Italian giant Cappellini he designed the widely acclaimed ‘S’ Chair and Creative Director at Habitat rejuvenating the brand while maintaining Terence Conran’s vision of enriching everyday life through simple, modern design. In 2007, he launched Design Research Studio, a design and innovations agency at the heart of Tom Dixon, now based at Coal Office in London’s King’s Cross, which operates as an office, shop, workshop and restaurant all under one roof. We chat about his love of making things, which includes food, hence his collaboration with chef Assaf Granit - Coal Office is their food and design playground, rich in material, style and flavour. He also has a wry take on his early designs: ‘After 20 years in the business, I still feel young and there’s a lot to do, it’s both fabulous and depressing that my stuff is now being sold in antique shops and occasionally a car boot sale'. Tune in for more.

Welcome to episode 157 of the House Guest podcast, where Country & Town House Magazine's Interiors Editor Carole Annett chats with experts from the world of interior design and decoration. If you’re dreaming of an Italian getaway, today’s podcast is for you. Count Benedikt Bolza and his wife Nencia Corsini have created Castello di Reschio, a castle sitting at the top of undulating Umbrian landscape, a blissful escape. Just reopening after its winter slumber, the interior and most of the castle’s furniture is designed by Benedikt himself, a trained architect and utter perfectionist. He couldn’t find a coffee machine without plastic pods so he made one, he doesn’t like how technology affects our sleep so the mattresses have special magnetic toppers to repel white light, he doesn’t like corridors (they feel too ‘hotel-y’) so suites fan out from a central courtyard – every detail is researched and tested to make guests feel at home. Whether you’re walking the grounds, watching the horses exercise in the equestrian centre, eating freshly foraged delicacies, admiring Nencia’s artwork and flowers or having the knots in your shoulders eased in the former wine cellar’s spa, Reschio delights and charms at every turn. Tune in for more.