Warm, Cozy, Beautiful England

My love affair with English decor continued for several years.  As with my previous posts revisiting Pennsylvania decor, revisiting English homes make me love it all over again.  It's like revisiting your favorite aunt and finding her with outstretched arms waiting to embrace you.  Just see if you don't think England could embrace you.  Works for me.

The following images are from the lovely book, English Country Interiors, by Mitchell Beazley, published in 2004.  It contains beautiful pictures and text about Cotswold homes.  I just love the name "Cotswold."

I can just see Jane Marple answering the phone here only to learn of the body in her friend's library.

The English so love their dogs, and I so love their antique grandfather clocks.  (Rosemary, does this remind you of anyone?  Webster perhaps?)

Note the view out the window.

Another great window - this time note the blue and white transfer ware on its sill.

From the same book, several kitchens are shown containing AGA stoves because they are so prevalent in Britain.  Their burners and ovens stay warm all the time which is why so many pets stay close to them - attractive in damp Britain.  My husband and I really considered purchasing an AGA during one of our kitchen renovations, but that black venting pipe in the back of the stove was a deterrent.

So here the pipe is white, yet still a distraction, for me anyway.

Still from Beazley's book, onto an antique dealer's home .

What beautiful molding surrounds the fireplace, and the pottery jugs atop the mantel are antique as are most of the items in this home.

Great window, shutters, and vegetable-laden trug.

Another AGA, but minus the rear venting pipe.   Back stairs always seems like such a good idea because one might need a cup of tea in the middle of the night.

Can kindles or i-pads ever replace a library like this?  Never, I hope.

  Sweet jugs on leaded window sill.

How do I love this room?  Let me count the ways.

That wonderful molding again.

Wasn't this a great house??  The entire book is a treat and makes a great addition to our own libraries.


Now onto an English home from a February 2006 issue of The English Home.

That ubiquitous venting pipe rears its head again.

Do you feel embraced by England?  Their decor is so warm and inviting.  As I said earlier, revisiting the English design aesthetic makes me love it all over again and makes me want to go watch Howard's End. or Emma, or Jane Eyre, or reach for one of these novels in my own library.

Next time, it's more of England with a bit of Pennsylvania thrown in (I discovered yet another article in my latest search for English influences).
Till then, stay warm, stay in a library, stay in a garden, stay English-
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English Influence

While still being influenced by the Maine-Brandywine-Pennsylvania design as seen in all my earlier posts, about seven years later, I began to feel a new pull in my design aesthetic, and it was toward the warm, cozy, book-lined, pots-of-tea British rooms.  Rooms which smacked of yesterday's Miss Marple, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, Out of Africa, and of today's  Downton Abbey.  Rooms redolent with chintz fabric, toile wallpaper, and bowls of delphiniums.   Add a fireplace and a dog to any of these rooms, and who could resist.  Not me.

Out of Africa from Hooked on Houses

Ghost and Mrs Muir from Hooked on Houses

Downton Abbey from Hooked on Houses

Perhaps another "must" for English rooms is a handsome Englishman.

Now that you have the idea, let's view a home from a designer who worked for the Colefax and Fowler design firm.  A book of the same name, Colefax and Fowler, written by Chester Jones, was published in 1989 and contains pictures of Stanley Falconer's restored Gloucestershire home called Tughill.  Don't you love how English homes have names - just like they are part of the family?  And any town ending in "shire" has to be charming.  Falconer's Tughill certainly charmed me.

Main entranceway.  Note the hardware on the door, the brass lock, and the floor of old flagstones.

Another entryway.  I believe the table here once belonged to John Fowler himself.

One of the sitting rooms.  Great smallish fireplace.  Nothing in this house seems too big but so perfect.

Another view of the same room.  Just when I think I only want bare wood or tile floors, I see Oriental rugs layered atop sisal ones and looking so comfy.

Vignette in the same room with a lovely flower arrangement of roses.

The floral fabric is so muted and pretty here.  It reminds me of how Darryl Carter uses the reverse side of fabrics to get this same look.  Another old door lock and fold-in shutters on the deep window.

I want to curl up with a good book in this room or have an intimate conversation with a good friend.  Better view of the shutters with beautiful leaded windows.

The necessary books with which to curl up.

Dining room with English blue transfer ware on fireplace mantel.  Like the small screen in the corner.  Like everything  in this house.

This cupboard reminds me of some of the ones in Pennsylvania homes filled this time with English pottery instead of red ware.

Wish there were more and bigger pictures of the kitchen.

I am not a ruffles kind of person, but this bed treatment is interesting.

The bathroom off the master bedroom with unusual chair/toilet.  Really like the wallpaper here - so English.  How could you not fall in love with Tughill??  Soo English, soo cozy,  soo "shire."

The bedroom above is not from Tughill, but appeared in the same book as Tughill.  It is so beautifully English, I wanted to include it here before leaving Jones's book.


Another English home, with a similar feel as the one above, appeared in a magazine of which I do not have the title.  I tore out the pages and never noted the source.  My apologies to the source.  Roger Jones, just as Stanley Falconer did, works for Colfax and Fowler.  He puts me in mind of Darryl Carter because he was an attorney first, but then "he walked into the London showrooms of Colefax and Fowler's textile and decorating firm to buy himself a neat black lacquered desk, and walked out--a little dazed-- as the new manager of the firm's antique department."  Here is his home.

There's the infamous black lacquered desk, and a sisal rug minus the Falconer Oriental rugs.  I miss them.

Roger Jones, himself, with his topiaries.

Such an English entrance.

Delphiniums actually inspired the bathroom's paint color.

Guest bedroom.

Ahh, I like this Oriental rug on sisal and the blue toile fabric in the master bedroom.  The Chippendale latticework armchair is an antique Roger says he will never part with.

Another very English necessity - gardens.

Seeing this lovely garden scene with the teak bench, reminded me of my teak benches.  I'm sure I purchased them during my English/cozy period.  Bought them from Smith and Hawkin before they went out of business and have never regretted it.  I still love them today and thought I would post a few pictures of them, now weathered, in our backyard.  We have no lovely stone walls, like the one above, but I love my gardens.

A view from behind the benches looking across the pool toward the back of our house.

Better shot of the teak.  Never thought it was really comfortable, but looks great, and has gotten a seasoned patina over the years.

So, the elements of English style consist of what?  Houses with names, chintz fabrics, Oriental rugs, fireplaces, blue transfer ware, soft furniture, antiques, toile wallpaper, gardens, old stone houses in "shire" towns.  Did I forget anything?  Are you sorry we left the earlier phase, dear readers?  Do you miss Pennsylvania?  Do you like the  English phase?  Let me know.  Till next time - with more coziness.
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