Essential Kitchen Bathroom Bedroom – December 2017

I’ve been having a real personal decorating dilemma this month, whereby in the process of re-imagining our kitchen extension I can’t decide whether I am more on the dark or light side of the interiors debate. On the one hand, I love everything open and bright, in that sort of Scandinavian way, and I’m picturing beautiful blonde wooden floors with exposed wood cupboards and a light, perhaps blush, shade on the walls. But then, on the the other hand, I’m so drawn to dark cabinetry and dark floors and as we have already decided on Crittal-effect windows for the back of the house, this seems like the right look to go for. So when we visited Jane Rockett’s house (co-owner of Rockett St George) to photograph her kitchen and glean some tips on decorating for the festive season, I was thrown into even more of a quandary. Jane comes down on neither side of the debate, and has seamlessly mastered the art of achieving both looks at the same time. She has gone with dark walls – it was the first time I had seen the Abigail Ahern Madison Grey colour in the flesh and it really is sumptuous – along with super-smooth pale floors and lots of rustic touches, it works so beautifully. Turn to page 58 and glimpse at how Jane gets into the festive spirit in Rock the Party. I also love this sort of high-low mixture in our other kitchen projects this issue – Laura Harper Hinton’s clean-lined space in Eclectic Mix on page 24 and Sally and Nick Rees’ traditional painted oak design which works so well in their character-filled oast house in Country Tale on page 38. Really, there is no one side or the other as it’s all about embracing both the dark and light; the challenge lies in getting the right balance. In our bathroom section we are homing in on new design-led tile ideas that are coming through now.