House Guest by Country & Town House | Interior Designer Interviews

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.

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.

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...