Interior designers spend their days working out how to make spaces beautiful, efficient and comfortable, so it’s perhaps inevitable that they should create their own fittings. It’s nothing new, of course; Sibyl Colefax & John Fowler has been making bespoke pieces of furniture ever since the company was founded in the 1930s.
In an interior-design manifestation of Plato’s proverb that necessity is the mother of invention, decorator Rosanna Bossom was inspired to start her own collection when trying to resolve a particular design conundrum. ‘Five years ago, I was helping clients re-decorate a large drawing room,’ says Rosanna, whose projects have ranged from Nicholas Coleridge’s new Quinlan Terry-designed folly to the private members’ club 5, Hertford Street, W1. ‘It was dominated by a heavy, chintz ottoman that sat as a distancing obstacle between the two sofas, making any conversation across it almost impossible.’ To address this problem, she came up with her Nicholas Ottoman, which has its central core cut out and replaced with a hard, flat surface on which to place drinks or books. ‘It has transformed the space; people can now comfortably sit on the edge of the ottoman and chat.’
Since designing that piece, Rosanna’s collection has expanded to include a daybed with high upholstered head and sideboards —perfect for fitting into studies that double as spare bedrooms in space-starved London apartments—and skirted tables with smart kick-pleats or deep fringes (020–3691 4552; www.rosannabossom.co.uk). ‘Skirted tables are definitely on their way back. I love them as a way of introducing fabric and softness to a room. And they provide useful extra storage, with a place to hide things underneath.’
'You want to know that the piece will not only look great, but will be built to last'
Denne historien er fra April 01, 2020-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra April 01, 2020-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
