26/09/2026
The Blue Room sits on the first floor at Norfolk House, looking out over the garden and the trees beyond, and that was really where I started with the interior.
I wanted to bring some of that greenery inside.
These are enormous Georgian rooms — around 20ft x 20ft with 15ft ceilings — and I’ve always felt that little ditsy prints just disappear in them. You have to be brave with scale. Without something with real impact, a room this size can very quickly feel vast and a little drab.
Being both an interior and textile designer, I was determined to use Norfolk House almost as a curated canvas for some of the wallpapers, colours and patterns I love.
And because the house is predominantly used by women coming here for special celebrations, I never wanted the backdrop to those weekends to be beige and bland. It would have been very easy to decorate the whole house in safe, muted tones, but where’s the fun in that?
Although Norfolk House is Georgian in style, it was actually built during the Victorian period — an era that certainly wasn’t frightened of colour, pattern or a bit of maximalism.
This wallpaper has a beautiful Art Deco feel, but I also had to consider the original red Italian marble fireplace. It’s such a strong feature in its own right, so everything needed to work together rather than compete.
I chose a large king-size bed, then added a single to give groups more flexibility with sleeping arrangements. Oversized bedside lamps, rattan furniture, velvets, rich jewel colours and plenty of texture soften the scale of the room, while the plants bring us right back to where the design started — the garden outside the window.
Big rooms can take big ideas. Sometimes you just have to be brave enough to use them.
