Stone cottage, Hathersage · 2024

Tarn Cottage

A cottage full of inherited furniture, rehung and relit rather than replaced.

Bruges brown · Chalk limewash · Old brass

Dining room with warm limewashed walls, gilt framed painting and candlelight

Rooms: Dining room, hall and stair
What we did: Colour & material scheme
How long: 9 weeks
Our fee: Scheme fee £3,200

Almost everything in these rooms was already there — the table, the vitrine, the pictures, the vases. What was missing was any agreement between them. The brief was explicitly not to buy a new house full of furniture.

We limewashed the walls in a warm mid-brown so the gilt frames had something to sit against, rehung the pictures at one datum, and put every fixed light on a dimmer with candle-warm lamps. Two rugs and the stair runner were the only things bought new.

What the client was handed

A room-by-room plan of what stays, what moves and what goes
Limewash and paint schedule, with a sample panel made on site
Picture hanging plan at one datum line
Lamp and dimmer schedule for every fixed fitting

Hall and stair with olive panelling and a mirror by the front door — The hall, panelling picked out a shade deeper than the walls so the stair reads as one piece.

Corridor with timber floor, framed pictures and a view through to the stair — Pictures rehung to one datum line the whole length of the corridor.

Next project

Pell Bedroom

A dark room made deliberately darker, and lit so it works at 7am and at 11pm.

See Pell Bedroom Book a consultation

Bedroom with deep blue-green panelled walls, low opal globe pendants either side of the bed