INTERIORS

Back to basics

Time for an interior upgrade? To achieve this, it’s wise to strip away the decorative layers and assess the style impact of your walls and floors, says Emma Clegg

One problem about living in a flat or house is that once it’s decorated and furnished to your taste, it’s easy to develop a careless appreciation of a thing done well. Any walls that have been knocked down, any spaces reshaped, the addition of Velux windows, sliding doors, log burners and clever lighting systems along with colour schemes, wallpaper choices and furnishing styles were well-admired after their unveiling. But their novelty has receded, the freshness gone and a style blindness on the part of all who live there has ensued.

Pictures become invisible through familiarity, new bookshelves pop up to house new possessions, colour matching becomes dissonant through the introduction of additional accessories. More seriously, things are looking a bit shabby: the vinyl flooring has developed raised bumps and cracks where the sunshine falls, the carpet has lost its bouncy pile and its evenness of colour, tiles are cracked in the bathroom and the grout is grubby.

A wise approach if your room needs a style refresh is to go back to basics, and that means stripping back and rethinking your walls and floors. Now, you might think that walls and floors form just the simple architectural structure of a room and it’s what you put within these planes that matter. But you’d be wrong, because there are multiple design options and material choices available and every element contributes to the whole. Making decisions about these will be essential in creating a meaningful three-dimensional space.

Going back to basics is totally fashionable nowadays. Take earthen floors. This was the very first kind of floor, common in most houses until the mid-14th century in Europe. But they are no longer archived in the past and have had a resurgence in recent years with the green movement where an earthen floor is sealed with linseed oil to protect it. Natural stone floors have that same close-to-the-elements quality, materials such as marble and granite formed beneath the earth under intense heat and pressure. From pyramids to castles, kitchens to garden paving, stone has never lost its lure. Flagstones, slate and brushed limestone tiles, exposed stonework, stone in unusual shades

Cook's blue, St Giles blue, Stiffkey blue and Lulworth blue from Farrow & Ball, painted to give extra presence to each bed head; farrow-ball.com

Floors of natural stone –formed beneath the earth under intense heat and pressure –have that close-to-the-elements quality

Approaches to walls

• A dado or picture rail makes a good visual divider on a wall –position the line according the room’s features.

• Introduce a gallery wall for personality and colour with a framed collection of art or photographs.

• Paint two thirds of the wall with a colour and leave the top third white to help visually raise the ceiling height.

• Grouping wall-mounted artwork in a three is an impactful way to make a big statement.

• Add a romantic, antique feel to your room by using a highimpact wallpaper, perhaps as a feature wall.

Farrow & Ball, California Collection: Faded Terracotta is a soft, warm, easygoing shade for walls; farrow-ball.com

Gelato sage gloss ceramic tile by Mandarin Stone; mandarinstone.com

Flooring decisions

• For kitchen flooring, aim for durability and ease of cleaning. Good choices are linoleum, ceramic tile and wood.

• Bathrooms have more moisture, and linoleum, ceramic tile, limestone, marble and granite are all good flooring choices.

• Oak, extremely hard-wearing and with an attractive grain, is often the first choice for wooden flooring, while maple, birch, and pine are also widely used.

such as pink and green, and tumbled travertine are all trending now.

Tiles are another versatile option, first used around 4000BC. Tiled floors, mosaics and sophisticated underfloor heating were the luxurious go-to for the Romans. Decorative tiles resurged in the 12th century to create patterns in churches, monasteries and palaces and have evolved constantly. Recent favourites have seen terracotta tiles, matte tiles, Moroccan style designs, terrazzo and Art Deco in the mix.

Hardwood floors – using wood from a broad-leaved tree –appeared in 1600AD but they tended to be simple and workaday and it took until the Baroque era before they became elegant and highly finished. In the Industrial Revolution, floors divided rich and poor, with the wealthy having floors of sanded hardwood and solid flagstones, and the poor having cheap wooden floorboards liable to damp. Wooden floors are now a more egalitarian favourite; practical, natural and sustainable, and if they are not part of the structure of the house there are plenty of engineered alternatives in finishes from oiled and waxed to lacquered and distressed.

Warm floor coverings have always been an essential household accessory, with animal hides and furs previously providing a warm spot in the most primitive and unheated of households. Carpets themselves –floor coverings made from thick woven fabrics –go back to 5000BC, although they were primarily used as wall or table coverings before the popularity of the Persian rug in the early 17th century. These were so valuable that, in the Middle East, carpets were common currency for payment of dowries, to buy livestock or to pay off taxes. Nowadays wool, sisal and jute natural fibres, and warm, earthy tones remain favourites as well as bold colours and jewel tones and geometric patterns for the more adventurous.

When it comes to walls, a coat of emulsion in any colour shade is an easy transformative makeover. Painting our environment is an important psychological statement of ownership – early artists used the natural materials available to them, such as calcite, charcoal, hematite, and manganese oxide, to define and decorate their environment and tell visual stories. Later, paints were handmade from ground-up mineral-based pigments such as charcoal, blood, sap, berry juice; and ochre, rust and iron hydroxides and mixed with bases of water, saliva, urine, or animal fats to create paint. The first pre-mixed wall paints, by Sherwin-Williams in 1867, revolutionised the options and since the 1940s technological advances have resulted in synthetic pigments and chemical processes enabling the easier preparation of paint in myriad colours. Recent years have seen strong trends for grounding natural colours driven by the eco movement and natural environment, then warm and cossetting colours to give emotional connections with comfort, security and protection in pandemic times.

Wallpapers came later, in the 16th century, initially used to decorate the insides of cupboards and smaller rooms in merchants’ houses. Improvements in block-printing processes meant that by the middle of the 18th century patterns could be printed in many colours and in 1839 the first wallpaper-printing machine was patented. At the beginning of the 20th century, wallpaper was ubiquitous in poor and wealthy homes alike. In the 1970s, linked to the oil crisis and competition from paint companies, wallpaper took more of a back seat, but recent decades have seen a big upturn in its popularity with digital printing techniques and modern designers such as Tracey Kendall and Timorous Beasties introducing new visions of modern wall coverings that continue to dazzle and inspire. n

Stone flooring: the advantages, by Natural Stone Consulting –from their new showroom in North Somerset.

• Natural stone can be used almost anywhere; floors, paving, driveways, skirting, cladding, staircases and swimming pools.

• The finish applied to natural stone has a critical effect on how the material looks and can change how light or dark it is.

• With connotations of beauty and luxury attached to natural stone, its installation in a property will help add value and will ensure it remains at a high standard for years.

• A stone tile will warm up quickly and stay warm for longer than most flooring materials, so is efficient with underfloor heating.

• Few materials have the longevity of natural stone and it’s considered a product with the best possible lifecycle.

• Intricate details found in stone, including shells, fossils and veining, cannot be truly replicated in a manmade material.

• Every piece is unique. Natural stone, formed over many years, is full of history – no two pieces are exactly the same.

• Natural stone has been used for centuries due to its ability to withstand all that life throws at it for a long time. Even centuries-old stone can be restored to its original glory.

• Stone is easily maintained. Day-to-day cleaning can be carried out with soapy water, while a wide range of products make occasional cleaning and resealing simple.

• The durability of many natural stone tiles means they can be used for internal and external spaces to help create a consistent flow between different areas.

Belgian bluestone floor by Natural Stone Consulting; naturalstoneconsulting.co.uk

xxxx

• Plain and Ornamental plastering • • Wide selection of new cornices, ceiling roses etc • • Cornice made to match existing and repair work • • Lime plastering and rendering • • 29 years experience •

Tel: 07970 278028 Email: info@john-boyce.co.uk www.john-boyce.co.uk

Garden goals

Life’s too short for painting fences over and over again, say the folk at ColourFence; invest in something attractive and long-lasting

The problem with traditional fencing is that eventually, it will break. And the moment it does, you have to deal with third party damage, security and privacy issues, neighbour’s concerns, quotes, the expense and inconvenience – all at once. With ColourFence however, you can avoid these issues for 25 years! ColourFence is the only fence not to warp, crack, shrink, rot or peel, and it withstands windspeeds of up to 130mph.

The goal is to provide you with metal garden fencing and gates that are attractive and long-lasting without costly, time-consuming annual treatments. Furthermore, when you purchase ColourFence products you’re investing in your garden long-term, because their garden fencing comes with a 25-year guarantee. They also offer a national survey and fitting service, via their fully trained network rather than casual contractors, and strive to give value for money.

As well as ColourFence, they offer ColourRail, which is a steel railing solution at the fraction of the cost of the wrought iron alternative. It can be mounted freestanding using the appropriate posts, or between existing pillars or on top of walls as local conditions dictate. Manufactured from 16mm galvanised steel tube, and a sturdy 25x38mm frame, it is available in a number of standard heights up to 1.5m. Garden railings come at a standard width of 2.4m but can be cut down according to your needs. Six colours are offered as standard, including cream, blue, green, brown, anthracite grey and gloss black, with over 300 RAL colours available on request (subject to minimum order quantities). Both railings and gates are finished by hand in ColourFence workshops and are a high quality, economic, very attractive alternative to more costly wrought or cast iron.

In addition, as part of the portfolio of superior products, they offer ColourGate. All the gate engineers are Gatesafe accredited which means that they have undertaken nationally verified and independently delivered training to understand how to engineer the metal gates with the highest level of safety. Pair this with a five-year guarantee and you can be assured that you are buying a luxury product at an affordable price.

As ColourFence has gained in popularity and customers have been keen to extend the benefits to the rest of their garden, ColourShed has lately been added to the Climar product range. This 6x8ft metal shed combines the low-maintenance practicalities of the fencing to offer a storage solution that not only matches the rest of the garden but is guaranteed not to rot, warp or rust. The garden sheds are custom designed to match the look and colour of the fence and railing products and are made from the same unique ColorbondTM steel that gives ColourFence products their resilient finish. With their metal sheds, which can be installed onto an existing base or onto a bespoke frame that also compensates for sloping or uneven ground, they aim to give you more fitting options than a standard shed. When installed, every garden shed should always be securely attached to the ground to prevent damage to it or surrounding property in high winds.

If you’re interested in finding out how ColourFence can help enhance the look and longevity of your garden this year, you can book a consultation via the website or phone 0117 259 1789. ■ • colourfencebristol.co.uk