Drawing Room Tour With A Special Guest!

I've had so many requests for a tour of the drawing-room!

Sigh has sweetly joined me for it, and we're going to talk through the various pieces because actually a lot of the pieces in this room are pre-me and just the most wonderful antiques!

When I walked into Simon's drawing-room in his previous home, the first time I came to visit, I felt like I was stepping into my family home. Simon and my mother had really similar tastes in antique furniture and the way to do things. It was just a really comforting feeling, walking into that room, and I think you can tell an awful lot about someone from their home. That moment definitely made me fall for Sigh a little bit more!

Simon's parents had quite a wonderful collection of clocks. They were keen clock collectors and we've just recently popped this beautiful piece up onto the wall where it belongs.

Simon bought a painting of a Paris street scene at auction when he saw it and liked it immediately. I think it's really important when you're at auctions and when you see things, if something grabs you, to go for it if you can because it's just lovely to have pieces of furniture, paintings and objects that you love and resonate with you.

The small sideboard came from Devon and it was one of mum's. We had it in our drawing room at home growing up, and it was a piece of furniture that I really, really loved, so it's really lovely to have it in here. We've got various things on top of the sideboard, including a Dunhill lighter that still works and is quite unusual! It's a bell, with a sort of ivory type handle and such a fun piece. I don't think they made that many of them, so probably quite rare to have.

Inside the sideboard is where I keep all of our glasses, which is just perfect and keeps them safely tucked away.

Hanging beside the sideboard, we have two pictures that came from Devon. As you know I just love horses so I adore this artwork!

Next up we've got a corner cabinet, which is always quite a useful thing to have to utilize all that space and store a few more pieces up and out of the way.

One of our sofas is actually a sofa bed, which is quite handy. We use this if we've got extra people to stay and nowhere to put them, so this room doubles up quite well as a bedroom!

The punchbowl belonged to my parents. We had lots of parties and did lots of entertaining so that was a brilliant, brilliant thing to use and I remember it fondly.

We've got a pair of antique blue jugs which were Sigh's mothers and I always use them. They're great to hold seasonal floral arrangements as they're nice and tall, and they just look wonderful. At the moment, they're filled with a faux arrangement for longevity as we're not always in here, and that way they just continue to look pretty.

Now this room, when we bought the house, was really, really ugly. It had big spotlights and looked pretty hideous, but we put a cornice around the top of the room as well as a skirting board which just lifted the room and gave it some character. I think without that, it can look a bit like a shoebox!

The cornice was quite a labour of love because it was quite hard to get a cornice, which had something to it rather than very plain. We approached a National Trust maker or cornices who put this in and I think it has actually really set the room off.

This house is actually grade two listed. This room was a new build that was put on in the seventies, so the old part of the house is through the entry door. It was so ugly! We changed everything about this additional part as well as the other addition, which is the kitchen. I think by doing so we've made it more in keeping with the rest of the house.

The paint colour is Edward Bulmer Eau de Nile. When we chose it, the decorators asked if we were really sure about it as it was very green and very strong! It was quite a shock to the rest of the house, which is Slipper Satin by Farrow and Ball. But I really wanted this green because I had to work with a lot of furniture that we already had and I thought it would work really well with Simon's sofa, the painting and their frames and everything else that was going to live in here.

We went for a really plain and simple, neutral curtain that's not going to date. We've got a lot of windows in here so it was a huge amount of fabric we needed. So I just went for something really simple and really neutral (and relatively cheap as Simon rightly pointed out!).

We haven't redecorated for all the time that we've been here, which is 10 years. So it does need a touch up in a few places, particularly the rest of the house, but this room hasn't been trashed too much by the children. They do come in here, as do the dogs, but it doesn't get a lot of heavy wear.

This room really comes into its own at Christmas and during parties and entertaining. In fact, we had Archies christening lunch in here without any furniture which we took out and I think we had 30 sitting in here on trestle tables!

So one of the things that I really had to work with when decorating this room was Sigh's beloved sofa. It wasn't going anywhere. He's had it for years and years and years, it is pretty battered, but he loves it. Particularly the cushions. Sadly he can't remember where the sofa came from as it was 30 years ago at least, but it was sourced by our old friend Fiona along with the cushions and the ottoman.

The painting above the sofa was again from Bellman's Auctioneers, whom we love. It's a European windmill scene and a great size to fill the expanse of wall behind it.

Fiona also sourced the lamps on either side of the sofa, and we absolutely adore them. The lampshades have never changed, but I keep on top of their quality by cleaning them routinely with the brush attachment of the hoover to suck off all the dust and keep them in tip-top condition. They've got the odd mark, but I think that adds a little bit of character and a little bit of life. There is nothing in this home that is completely pristine!

We have a desk in here that came from Simon's home, and this is a lovely, quiet, peaceful room to come and sit and write letters. Archie did a lot of his homeschooling at this desk here. Accompanying the desk is a filing cabinet, comfy desk chair, and another big lamp. I've got lots of pictures around the window sill. To the side of the desk is a lovely antique card table that also came from Simon's parents. It's William IV and is what's called Burr Walnut.

I do think if you live in a period home, it's important to have the right furniture. So we do have a few more modern pieces in the kitchen, but most things are antique and I think it just works with the building. This is a very, very old house apart from the two new additions and so I think it'd be wrong to furnish it with really modern things, it just wouldn't sit so well.

The style that we've gone for is very much that of an English country home with period furniture, and I love sitting here quietly and looking out at the roses. I put the two closest rose beds in after mum died, in memory of her. She loved her roses. They're David Austin roses and I just love them. They're my favourite colours and I have spent many, a happy moment sitting here taking in this part of the garden.

The big armchair in here needed a new cushion so I recently bought the most beautiful one from Phillips & Cheers. I think it works really well with the colours in this room.

We are very keen chess players, and this beloved chessboard and the pieces were a wedding present. We've also got backgammon and dominoes, and Sigh and the children, particularly Gus spend quite a lot of time sitting in these chairs, Gus in the smaller of the two, playing chess. The smaller chair was from a friend and I had it re-upholstered and brought back to life. The fabric was really inexpensive, I think about five pounds a meter in the sale, but I saw the colours and I just thought they would work really well in here with the green, the blue and the red.

We added another little section of the room during the build to mirror the other side. It wasn't symmetrical and it didn't fit well, it was a really dark gloomy corner. We put our Christmas tree here, but normally for the rest of the year, this is my sewing station where I can have a quiet moment to create things.

On the window sill on this side, we've got some gorgeous pictures. We have one of Coco's christening, with her wearing Simon's family christening robe. The boys were too big for it, but we managed to squeeze her in! Then we have Simon's mother, who was a model for a time and appeared in adverts for companies including McLeans! We also have a wonderful photo of Simon's grandmother, who was so glamorous. It's really lovely to sit with them while I'm working and have their faces looking back at me. Both of them were terribly beautiful, elegant ladies.

Now we get to the table that made me really think that I was at home when I went to visit Sigh that day. Glass on top, and then hidden under a cloth underneath is our TV! That is exactly what Mum had in all of our formal rooms at home growing up.

On top of the table, we have a bronze statue of Jason and the golden fleece from Sigh's parents, who were great collectors of silver and bronze pieces. We've had it for many, many years and it's such a lovely piece to have.

In front of the statue of Jason are three small Thunderbirds dishes. Simon's father was a writer of music for a lot of television series and worked with Jerry Anderson. He wrote the theme music for various TV series, including Thunderbirds, covering a lot of the puppet series in the sixties and seventies.

These dishes commemorating the Thunderbirds era are just a lovely little thing to have to remember Simon's father Barry.

Up above the table is a painting of a hunting scene, which Simon bought for me 5 or 6 years back. I'd been on the front cover of The Telegraph at the boxing day meet and Simon bought this for me as a tribute to that, which is a really lovely piece to have.

The storm lanterns on top of the mantelpiece were Simon's mothers. They are a cut glass on a Victorian silver stem design, and you could use them on a windy or breezy night. We still use them and they work very well! I love them being here and lit during Christmas. They really do come into their own, and every year I style my Christmas mantlepiece around these storm lanterns.

I also popped a couple of small vases from my parent's onto the mantel too, which I love.

The lovely 'seafaring' painting above the mantelpiece belonged to a friend of Simons. He was moving house and selling a number of pictures and various other items, and he's always liked it. He asked me if Sigh would like to buy it from him, which he did. Again it's a great size for the dimensions of the wall space, you do have to think about balancing the space well when considering artwork and where it's going to go.

We put the fireplace in ourselves, the previous one was hideous! We didn't want anything over the top or too elaborate, we just wanted something simple and clean and made of stone and this works really well. It's called a jet stream and it just works really, really well, it's easy to light and we don't get a room full of smoke, which is excellent. Beside the fireplace, we have our coal scuttle and bellows.

To the left of the fireplace, we've got our bookcase, which was Sigh's parents. It's George III mahogany and called a secretaire bookcase, effectively part desk, part bookcase and it's a very functional piece of furniture.

Beside the bookcase are two little paintings, one a lovely scene featuring a group of dogs and another with a funny story behind it!

Simon crewed on a yacht in the Mediterranean, in 1979/80. He had quite a well-known artist on board, not particularly well known at the time, but certainly well-known now, called Julian Barrow. The tradition is as crew, you would get a tip from the guests onboard the yacht after charter and Julian, rather than giving them a tip, went off and painted them a little picture! This was Simon's little picture. It's a scene from quite close to Dubrovnik, off the Yugoslavian coast as it was called back then.

The coincidence with Julian Barrow is I knew him through my job in London and I got to know him quite well. He was actually painting a property that I looked after whilst the clients were overseas. So every week I would go around to the house to check it and make sure everything was in order, and also let the artist in. I got chatting with him and I got to know him really well. It was such a coincidence when I went to stay with Simon the first time, and I saw that he had a Julian Barrow and put the connection together. It's a jolly small world and I just love it. I come in here, I look at that and just remember really fond memories of spending time with this lovely gentleman in Chelsea, chatting to him. He was full of wonderful tales and wonderful stories and I really enjoyed his company.

The ottoman in the centre of the room has been with Simon for years. It was something that Fiona sourced for Simon when he was doing his previous home in the days before me and I love it. It's a Kaleen rug upholstered onto the ottoman. We have all of our magazines on here too. Again, when we've got a house full we can perch on here! It's not great for putting drinks on because they can topple over, but it's just a really great piece of furniture. Again, this was really fundamental in designing this room because it wasn't going anywhere and had to work with the colour scheme.

The large rug we have down in here wasn't in here originally, and we hadn't planned for it to be, but when mum died, it was rolled up in a stable down in Devon. It had been in our family home, on top of the floorboards in our dining room. If left in Devon it would have been ruined, so this was the only place it could go, and the colours work well. It wasn't what I had necessarily chosen and I do find it a little bit busy, to be honest, but it works and it's better here than in a stable!

This is the room in which I also do my workout in the mornings so as not to disturb anyone. I will put my exercise mat down in the middle and I've got the double doors which I can open up so I don't overheat!

In the final corner of the room, we have a lovely painting that Simon has had for a number of years. He bought it when he was in his early twenties. We have a few more tucked away that were my Mum's, and then a few little pictures of Simon's family on the table here alongside another lovely lamp.

I hope you have enjoyed this room with us, thank you for joining us as we've walked you around! Do let me know if you would like to have more room tours with Sigh and me!

Love, Charlie x