The English Home

Spring has marked a season of change at The English Home and I greet you as Acting Editor. I have been a part of the wonderful team for more than 15 years, so will offer a smooth transition, keeping to the inspiring and welcoming content we know you so love. My usual specialism is decorating interiors, but given our focus on gardens this month, I have taken time to consider the importance of outdoor spaces. My own garden is small, but nevertheless where I enjoy watching birds feed and the spectacle of whatever my husband has cleverly planted up in pots. We extend our outdoor space by decamping to our nearby allotment, which we cherish as somewhere to nourish us physically with homegrown produce, and spiritually as a calm place…

SPOTLIGHT ON… Willow Crossley’s showstopping floristry course Impress guests by creating striking floral arrangements for special occasions. Florist, author and designer Willow Crossley demonstrates how to via Create Academy with her new step-by-step Advanced Floristry For Events online course, launching in April. “I want this course to give you the lifelong knowledge, skills and confidence to realise that you can create these amazing floral masterpieces even though they seem so large and intimidating,” she says. “With the skills you’ll learn, I promise you’ll be able to do it, and it’s really not as hard as it looks.” Over four hours of video are broken down into pausable, bitesize lessons covering how to conceptualise design ideas, co-ordinate colour palettes and source seasonal blooms in order to successfully build and install six…

ALL STARS The earthy green, tan and off-white shades of these captivating starburst-style tiles allows easy integration into neutral colour schemes. The collection is suitable for walls and floors and could be used for a feature wall, as seen here, or laid as a single-layer border to create character and contrast with plain tiles. Discotheque Toyah, £42 a square metre, Claybrook BRIGHT EDIT Nina Campbell’s latest spring-summer collection for Next includes standout lighting, furniture, bedding, textiles and accessories. Each piece typifies Campbell’s signature design flair for effortlessly combining classic and contemporary influences. For example, the palm leaf lamp in the above image has a relaxed glamour with its nostalgic exoticism and playful modern design. Metal leaf lamp, £160, Nina Campbell Home for Next TACTILE TOUCH Wallcovering specialist Omexco’s latest series…

A HOME EXTENSION It is not so much a case of bringing the outside in as bringing the inside out with Oxenwood’s range of large-format tables, designed to be like extensions of an indoor living space. Available in a range of styles, including the classic Aubrey, the French farmhouse-style Hagen (left), and the ‘floating’ effect of the Lucius, they are built using sustainable, natural materials that work in harmony with their surroundings. Each Oxenwood table is handcrafted to a client’s specifications (tables come in up to a sizeable six metres in length) and can be further tailored with integrated ice buckets and parasol openings. Did somebody say cocktail hour? It is five o’clock somewhere, surely. oxenwood.co.uk VIBRANT VELVET A new collaboration between Sofas & Stuff and the Victoria and Albert…

Emma and Archie Dennis already felt a connection to this house, as it had been in Archie’s family for decades. But deciding to renovate and redecorate what had once been a humble farmhouse fostered a far deeper bond with what is now their family home. “Having managed the process, we now know and love every inch of this house,” says Emma. Growing up in Berkshire, with a spell of living in London before moving to Lincolnshire, Emma has always been a traditionalist at heart. “I have a quintessentially British approach to decorating, which was part of what made the prospect of renovating this house so enticing,” she explains. ‘Wherever possible, we upgraded or restored the period features that create the feel of an English country home’ Emma and Archie lived…

‘It can be fun juxtaposing old and new and we make sure that the pieces we choose are a reflection of that look’ Suffolk towns and villages have a uniquely picturesque quality and Bildeston, where Cathy and Peter Bullen have lived for nearly 30 years is no exception. “Our house on the high street dates from the 17th century, but sometime in the early 1800s, it was given a classic Georgian facade,” Cathy says. “Peter was in the Army when we married and over the next four years we moved seven times from base to base, living in married quarters. I absolutely hated not having a home I could call my own, so we began the search for a house that was affordable on an army captain’s modest pay, and…