We are opening our blog to professionals in our wider architectural, construction and interior design field to share guest posts on our website. Sharing the stories of other professionals and businesses brings an opportunity for us to celebrate excellence in our sector. We envisage the Ecclesall Design blog being a place where you can come to get inspired for what your home can become, and we are pleased to share another of these exciting posts.
For this article, we collaborated with Lisa Green, owner of Dandelion Designs Upholstery, to share her insights about how to make your house into a home.
How to make your (fabulously designed) house into your home. By Lisa Green (Dandelion Designs Upholstery)
The year was 2020, and at the age of 49 I was buying my first house as sole owner (in a pandemic!!). I knew what I wanted, I knew I couldn’t afford it, I knew I had to jump in at the deep end with a property that estate agents would describe as having “character”! A 1950’s kitchen here, a 1960’s cork wall there, 1970’s carpet swirls everywhere…. you get my drift.
I fell in love with the 1800’s Derbyshire stone cottage, and I knew I had to have her. Simultaneously, all of my friends and family thought I’d lost the plot. Again! Never one to do things by halves, I signed on the dotted line and there began my journey of temporary homelessness (and possible insanity), planning headaches, spiralling building costs, and budgeting pitfalls.
But wow, she was worth every penny, grey hair, and wrinkle, and the vision I knew was inside me formed bit by tiny bit…….
Starting out, I needed an architect and I had the great fortune in finding Ecclesall Design to reimagine the space into a functional family home. Sue and Donatas were visionary, enthusiastic, and passionate about the project, and worked with me until the final design was perfect in every way.
Little did I know that thereafter, the journey to renovate and extend would be arduous…. beginning in August 2021, and finally ending in August 2024. However, in that time, a local team, Tom Rogers and Dan Warman, weaved their flawless magic alongside other local tradespeople to turn Sue and Donatas’ plans into reality. You can’t rush perfection!
So here she was. My very own cottage. Impeccable in every way…. except she was an empty shell, and the need to create more magic was suddenly all mine.
I wanted to pay homage to the history of the cottage, prove myself to the previous owners who had trusted me with their decade’s old family home, do justice to Sue and Donatas’ designs, show off Tom and Dan’s craftsmanship, and have a cosy home to call my own.
With this dilemma in the palm of my hands, I made the ultimate wish list. It had to:
- Be an oasis from everyday life.
- Be functional for me and my family.
- Have useful spaces for our lives and work.
- Have nooks for all our favourite pastimes.
- Have meaning in every space.
- Reflect our personalities.
- Showcase family talent.
- Not break the bank!
There was only one interior design that was going to fit the bill for me. Maximalism. More is More!
I am very fortunate in that my partner, Carl, is an artisan upholsterer with decades of experience, we jointly own an upholstery and soft furnishings company, Dandelion Designs Upholstery, and my Mum, Sandy, is a stained and fused glass artist. We were off to a good start.
Of course, it isn’t essential to have a resident upholsterer or genetically linked artist, just take inspiration from starting ideas like those above, and turn them into your own version of perfection.
Below I describe the various areas of my property, and how I achieved house to home using my wish list above.
Porch
Small…. but it had to be perfect! It needed to be welcoming, be a place for coat and shoe storage, and have seating (as I’ve reached the age where it’s a no go to stand to put your shoes on!). We scoured Facebook marketplace for a vintage boudoir chair that we rescued for less than £10, and Carl restored her from the frame up, finishing in the iconic Hera Feather in Jade, a linen from Liberty that we found on eBay as an end roll for £54. I then collected all of my similar coloured ceramics, and displayed them in groups. We also included some spectacular glass pieces from my Mum to reflect my love of Cornwall.
Kitchen/Diner/Snug
The heart of our home. We needed spaces for work, relaxation, dining, and kitchen parties. Ecclesall Design achieved a fabulous open plan but zoned area which used a former ceiling void to bring additional space and light over the cooking area. We themed the soft furnishings using varied pattern designs from Tatie Lou’s Soleil collection which celebrates her (and ours) deep-seated passion for birds, botanicals, and bohemian elements. These were used for the blinds, and the bespoke bench seating, footstool, and cushions that Carl manufactured. A neighbour had given us a free designer sofa over two decades old, and so Carl reupholstered her ‘good bones’ in Warwick’s ‘Lovely’ velvet in dusk. The walls are covered in pieces from unknown artists on Etsy depicting scenes from our favourite places in the UK, as well as pieces from a gallery in Cornwall, and sentimental pieces such as some vintage wallpaper we found under woodchip during the renovation and had framed. Mums’ artwork has also peppered the various spaces, with a particularly glorious nook full of her handmade ceramics.
Living Room
An extension to the cottage that was a masterpiece of architecture and building work that looked so small as footings, but grew into a spacious area for relaxation. Mum donated the Chesterfield sofa that I’d coveted for decades and Carl reupholstered her in Albany Fabric by Clarke & Clarke in Grape. This is a cotton mix which perfectly complimented the wallpaper we chose, Green Wall Wallpaper by Osborne & Little. We also added in some contrast piped scatter cushions that Carl manufactured in more of in Warwick’s ‘Lovely’ velvet but this time in Emerald and Conifer. More of Carl’s upholstery featured with a rocking chair and footstool inherited from my Grandad, and redesigned in Rockbird Signature Fabric by GP & J Baker, a linen inspired by Chinese artwork that we sourced for half price on eBay. Turning to our own artwork, it’s an eclectic mix of embroidery my Mum made in the 1990’s along with her glasswork, my Step Dad’s drawings, pictures of Cornwall, and pieces from our travels in Italy.
Utility
This used to be the dining room but became the ‘central’ hallway (actually off to the left of the main entrance as everything is wonderfully wobbly here!). More amazing design from Sue and Donatas turned this into a functional utility…. but who would know! It’s all concealed behind cupboards and looks like the mud room I imagined.
Family Bathroom
Formerly a carpeted spectacle, Sue and Donatas designed her upwards into a void to provide natural light and give the feeling of space. We filled her with a mixture of modern plumbing, a mid-century cabinet we had converted to a sink unit, and lots of sentimental artwork! Some drawn by my Step-Dad, to include the beach huts where my Mum grew up in Sutton on Sea. But the jewel in the crown was a stained-glass window Mum designed for the former outdoor bathroom window, that now also features in the living room. All my favourite colours, Mum’s signature nudes and a bee, Koi carp and lily pads. Perfection!
Main Bedroom and En-Suite
Formerly a large main bedroom that I needed to divide to give me an en-suite (if you lived with my daughter, you’d know I was never getting in the family bathroom!). We knew it was going to make the space small, but once again, Sue and Donatas rescued me with designing the bedroom upwards into the eaves. Genius! As well as the bed, wardrobe and bedside cabinets, we even had room for a tiny mid-century boudoir chair that had last been recovered in the 1980’s and again, cost us under £10. Carl reupholstered her in a design from Blackpop, a local high-end independent design company specialising in elegantly distressed homeware and accessories, including wallpaper, fabric and upholstered furniture. We used their Fresco, an opulent velvet, which complimented the colour scheme perfectly. Artwork in every space includes framed postcards from galleries in Cornwall, watercolours painted by my Step-Dad, stained glass pieces from Mum, and a tapestry weaving by my daughter from a day course she went on.
Second Bedroom
Another piece of architectural genius! This was a really small box room that needed to be a haven for my daughter who loves a reading nook….and collecting! Nooks galore for her by extending into the former void, and artwork from all her favourites, Harry Potter, Doctor Who, her dogs, tardigrades, the mind, and various sci-fi TV series! The final piece of upholstery mastery was a chair given to us for free by the pub across the road, Carl then restored and recovered her in another Blackpop classic velvet, Mary.
Garden
A former traditional garden, she became the heart of the building site and was pretty ruined by the end! However, we salvaged everything and anything we could find to include stone carvings, pieces of antique metal guttering, a vintage bird bath, and the stone from the old outhouse, turning the space into a contemporary wonder! What would a ‘room’ be without Carl’s upholstery…. every bench, garden chair and egg chair feature pieces we designed mixing geometrics, botanicals, and animals. What’s not to love!
Now go forth and maximalise, you know you want to!
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