English Cottage Bedroom Decorating Ideas
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English country bedroom ideas
Country bedroom ideas from the House & Garden archive to suit tiny cottages and rambling old piles alike
Are you thinking of redecorating your bedroom? Are you gravitating towards something pretty and old fashioned? We've trawled our archive to find our all time favourite country bedrooms. If you have a cottage or Victorian house, it makes sense to embrace its history - a good chintz fabric or brass bed will look instantly at home. Traditional bedrooms are cosy and snug, places to curl up with a good book. Lighting is important too - if you are going for the country look steer clear of bright white lightbulbs and opt for a yellow-toned glow. Pick up some inexpensive brown furniture from your local auction house, invest in some beautiful wallpaper and dot your room with characterful accessories and you're good to go...
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Davide Lovatti
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Davide Lovatti
This simple, rustic bedroom in Lamb's House features a beautiful wooden four-poster bed. White walls and minimal decoration allows it to stand out.
Known for their restoration of historic buildings in Scotland, conservation architects Nick Groves-Raines and Kristin Hannesdottir relished the challenge of saving Lamb's House in Leith, where they now live and work.
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Jake Curtis
For House & Garden's Carole Annett, a passing request for decorating advice from her friend, the interior designer Emma Sims Hilditch, turned into the top-to-bottom redecoration of her Surrey house. Carole chose Zoffany's 'Eleonora' paper for a spare room.
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Simon Brown
Thomas Clifford and his wife Clarissa have risen to the challenge of restoring Ugbrooke Park in Devon, which now has 12 main bedrooms and some charming turret rooms. This bedroom has a four poster bed with beautifully intricate details on its pelmet. The neutral colour of the walls is reflected by the bed dressings.
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More than a decade after inheriting their Perthshire estate, James and Caroline Inchyra have realised its full potential, turning it in to a bustling family home. Chintz curtains with an elaborate pelmet feature in this sunny bedroom. Take a look around the rest of the house here.
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Alexander James
In the main bedroom of Ed and Polly Nicholson's Wiltshire home, an eighteenth-century lacquered chest, which provides a contrasting tone, stands between windows with curtains in 'Secret Garden' by Raoul Textiles.
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Sarah Hogan
'I wanted the house to be comfortable above all, and for me colour is very much part of that,' says Jacquie Rufus-Isaacs of her eighteenth-century farmhouse in the Cotswolds. With the help of her friend, decorator Scott Maddux, she has enhanced the house with a slightly unusual palette, which is no surprise as Jacquie's real love is painting. She has a studio in a converted farm building where she works on her vibrant, expressive still lifes. Furnishings are equally various and include a sofa is upholstered in a Lelièvre stripe in the main bedroom, inherited antiques, junk-shop finds and a selection of paintings. These range from eighteenth-century landscapes to works by living artists including Barbara Stuart and Ken Howard. Jacquie's eye ensures a harmonious composition.
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Paul Massey
Dark blue accents, including curtains in inky velvet from The Cloth Shop add depth to the pale scheme in the main bedroom of a Cotswolds house by Joanna Plant. 'Silvergate' wallpaper by Farrow & Ball has an airy elegance that is anchored by a weathered antique mirror and wooden chest of drawers from Maison Artefact, and an artisan-made textured wool Moroccan Berber rug from The Rug Company.
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Simon Brown
In the Westmeath Room at Ballyfin, the French lit à la Polonaise probably dates from about 1900. The paper is by Mauny and the bed hangings and curtains are by Andrew Christy, who worked throughout the house.
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Paul Redman
Green Country Bedroom with Floral Headboard
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Simon Brown
Blue Farmhouse Bedroom
The main bedroom of Ptolemy Dean's Sussex newbuild is decorated in shades of blue and grey. This soothing scheme is finished with touched of dark wood. The curtains are in a floral fabric by G P & J Baker.
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Stately Homes
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Simon Upton
Chintz Wallpaper Bedroom
White bedding provides a crisp contrast to the chintz in the Lake Room of Bowood house; the curtain pelmet is in a traditional swagged style. In 1987, Fiona undertook the task of redecorating much of the house. Having trained at Colefax and Fowler, she brought with her the influence of its quintessential English country-house style.
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Wallpaper Ideas
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Simon Upton
Small Chintz Bedroom
One of the guest bedroom at Bowood House in Wiltshire has walls covered in Colefax & Fowler's 'Bowood' design - a pattern named after this house with interiors by John Fowler. The same pattern features on the bed valance, headboard, curtains and chair upholstery*.*
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Wallpaper ideas »
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Small White Rustic Country Bedroom
Give a country cottage bedroom a wash of white paint and their odd angles characterful corners come in to their own. A Jacob's ladder accentuates the double-height proportions of a spare room at Slackwood Farm in Lancashire.
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Bedrooms
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Grey Bedroom Pink Curtains
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Country Bedroom With Floral Wallpaper
Layers of pattern decorate the main bedroom in the Hampshire home of designer and antiques dealer Max Rollitt. The room is lined in Pierre Frey's 'Sans Papillons' wallpaper and features a canopy bed.
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Dining Room Ideas
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Andrew Montgomery
Downton Style Traditional Bedroom
The main bedroom at Faringdon House, the Oxfordshire home of writer Sofka Zinovieff, is full of character and pattern as one might expect from the house that used to belong to eccentric Lord Berners, the composer, artist and writer who was immortalised in Nancy Mitford's novel The Pursuit of Love as the whimsical character Lord Merlin.
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Kitchen design ideas
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Simon Brown
Country-Style Bedroom with Bay Window
In this north London house, designed by Caroline Holdaway, the light wall panelling and white bedlinen act as a foil for various patterned Celia Birtwell fabrics in the main bedroom. The owner Paul says, 'It's the most lovely house to wake up in. We never completely lower the bedroom blinds, so we wake up with the light. In spring, the views are of blossom, in summer of leaves, in winter the sky.'
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15 IDEAS FOR WEDDING GIFTS
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Michael Sinclair
White Panelled Bedroom with Four Poster Bed
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Rachael Smith
Pale Blue Bedroom with Floral Curtains
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Rachael Smith
Yellow Victorian Bedroom
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Paul Massey
Manor House Bedroom
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Blue Bedroom with Striped Curtains
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Paul Massey
Floral Wallpaper and Four-Poster Bed
The interiors of Domaine de la Baume have been designed by Jocelyne Sibeut with the intention of reinterpreting eighteenth-century styles. The floral wallpaper in this bedroom is from Charles Burger.
Taken from the House & Garden May 2015 supplement, Hotels by Design.
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Small Bedrooms
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Simon Brown
White Country Bedroom
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Lucas Allen
Green Floral Wallpaper Twin Bedroom
Twin beds are ideal for this guest room. The Colefax & Fowler 'Snow Tree' wallpaper in aqua works perfectly with a view to the garden outside, creating a light and verdant bedroom. All the tones and patterns are harmonious and soft. The armchair has a classic bullion braid trim and the lantern continues the garden theme of the room as its design would be fitting for outdoor use.
Taken from the October 2015 issue of House & Garden.
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Kids' rooms
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Simon Upton
Traditional English Bedroom
Upstairs in the main bedroom of this farmhouse in the Chilterns hangs a collection of John Nash watercolours. 'I love them, they represent "my England"; it makes me happy looking at them,' says the owner. The magnificent Tabriz carpet is reputed to have come from the house of the poet and arts patron Edward James, West Dean in Sussex. The neutral walls allow pieces such as the bold Tabriz carpet and dark wood chest to take centre stage.
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10 ridiculously decadent beds
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Simon Brown
Small Cottage Bedroom
In the spare bedroom of Caroline Holdaway's cottage, an olive-stripe flatweave rug from Sinclair Till contrasts with a vibrant tartan rug from Toast used as a bedspread and cushions made from fabric pieces left over from projects.
Taken from the January 2015 issue of House & Garden.
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10 English cottages
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Simon Brown
White Bedroom with Wooden Beams
The low, modern ceiling in the main
bedroom of designer Caroline Holdaway's Cotswold cottage was removed to reveal the timber beams and clad with
reclaimed matchboarding. A pair of custom-made oak table lamps from
Belgium add symmetry and style.
Taken from the January 2015 issue of House & Garden.
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Alexander James
Wisteria Wallpaper Bedroom
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Paul Raeside
Green Bedroom with Ruched Blinds
This green, cream and black bedroom features ruched blinds, which are shaking off their Eighties associations and making a comeback. Some rooms require a relaxed edge and these provide that softness. This one is in 'Sophie' from Borderline, £76 a metre - a simple linen print that looks charming and not at all like a Viennetta.
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16 ideas for curtains and blinds hand-picked by our Decoration Director
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Ngoc Minh Mgo
Attic Bedroom with Art Display
Interior designer Harriet Anstruther's grandmother's shawl makes the bed in the spare room of her Sussex farmhouse especially cosy, while the wooden crates used as a side table add a rustic edge.
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Small bedroom ideas
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Ngoc Minh Mgo
Farmhouse Bedroom
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Floral Bedroom with Bed Canopy
A bed with a half-tester canopy made by J Gee Blinds takes centre stage in the main bedroom of a London flat designed by Charlotte Crosland, accessorised with a fleur-de-lis cover by Neisha Crosland and cushions that mirror the floral motifs on the decorative wall.
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10 ridiculously decadent beds
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Alexander James
Floral Vine Wallpaper Bedroom
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Alexander James
Blue Bedroom with Floral Curtains
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Elsa Young
Victorian Twin Beds
Jeanetta Rowan-Hamilton of Nettles Cashmere restored her tin-roofed fishing lodge after inheriting it from her parents. She abhors waste and loves change of usage, and is often seen in the salvage section of her local antiques shop. In one of the four bedrooms, Jeanetta has repainted this pair of Victorian beds that were her grandmother's. The neutral tongue and groove walls and ceiling brings the feel of old and new together.
Taken from the February 2015 issue of House & Garden.
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Small bedroom design ideas
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Andrew Montgomery
Victorian Brass Bed
Grove Lodge, the Cambridge home of Tim Knox, director of The Fitzwilliam Museum, and landscape designer Todd Longstaffe-Gowan, provides the perfect setting for the couple's growing collection of artwork and curiosities. In the spare bedroom a gallery wall of antique pictures has been coupled with a brass bed-frame and gingham bedspread.
Taken from the January 2014 issue of House & Garden
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How to hang pictures
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Andrew Montgomery
Romantic Traditional Bedroom
Serena Foyle, a music designer for firework displays divides her time between her home in Edinburgh and her family's Cadogan Square flat in London where she lives with her artist brother William. A portrait of Serena, her sister Antonia and William as children, by artist Dick Smyly, hangs in Serena's bedroom. The bed is hung with a sumptuous pink half-tester.
Taken from the October 2014 issue of House & Garden. Additional text: Dominic Bradbury.
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Jake Curtis
French Country Bedroom
House & Garden decoration editor Gabby Deeming has created a relaxed summer-holiday feel with a Mediterranean-inspired selection of wood and antique metal furniture. The oiled-oak 'Clyde' side table, is £550 from Pinch, while on the floor, the blue striped cotton dhurrie rug is from a selection at Guinevere antiques.
The bed frame is antique, but for similar try the 'Somerset' at Laura Ashley. A French, nineteenth-century ash chest of drawers from Colefax and Fowler Antiques complements the iron and glass chandelier. For similar try the 'Chantal' at Graham & Green. The raffia wall shade on the back wall is from the The Conran Shop.
Taken from the July 2014 issue of House & Garden.
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Simon Brown
Cotswolds Grey Bedroom
This is a house to fall in love with, located in a Cotswold village so unfeasibly pretty you want to bottle it to savour. In the bedroom you can almost do just that - it opens to the garden. The owners decorated it themselves but Nina Campbell is an old friend and 'still have many things she found'. Here, they matched the bedcover from The White Company to the beams, given a greyish, limed-effect finish to retain a sense of airiness.
Taken from the February 2014 issue of House & Garden. Additional text: Ros Byam Shaw.
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Simon Upton
Cream Bedroom with Patchwork Headboard
The bedroom of decorator Emma Burns of Sibyl Colefax & John Fowler is quintessentially English in both its gentle antique style and its 'make do and mend' execution. 'The bedhead is covered in an ancient patchwork made from my mother's old dresses. I originally used it as a tablecloth,' she says. 'For me the bedroom is as important as the sitting room; it is a place of refuge that I use for resting and reading. I like to fill it with books, pictures and armchairs. I've kept a feeling of softness by using a very subtle stippling effect on the walls, and some translucent blinds from Chelsea Textiles under the curtains, which allow a diffuse light into the room. My linen is from Volga Linen.
Taken from the May 2013 issue of House & Garden. Additional text: Emily Senior.
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Paul Massey
White Bedroom with Painted Wardrobe
Interior designer Marion Lichtig designed the headboards in the spare room to echo the nineteenth-century Dutch, harlequin-painted armoire. The pretty floral quilts were found in France, but the floral ranges from Ikea (such as Emmie Blom) are a good match.
Taken from the October 2013 issue of House & Garden. Additional text: Judith Wilson and Emily Tobin.
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See more pictures from this home
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Simon Upton
White Bedroom with Welsh Blanket
Tongue-and-groove panelling adds New England-style charm to the spare room (in what used to be the butler's pantry) of this 1830s London house restored to its original style by interior designer Max Rollitt. The touch of a chair used in place of a traditional nightstand is particularly charming.
Taken from the October 2013 issue of House & Garden. Additional text: Anthony Gardner.
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Simon Upton
Antique Patchwork Quilt
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Antique Chintz Bed Canopy
The rich, witty and wonderfully eclectic interiors of designer Nicky Haslam's sixteenth-century, gothic-revival hunting lodge have long been coveted by all of us here at House & Garden. So when we heard he was producing a furniture range for Oka, based on pieces from his own home, we were extremely excited. Following his motto 'use something red and gothic in each room and you're all right,' the collection has ogees, points, tracery and quatrefoils a-plenty, offering the chance to recreate at least a part of his look. House & Garden shot the collection in situ at the house. Here in the bedroom 'The Original Orangery Stepped' bedside table, works beautifully with the vertical floral border on the wall (a lovely decorative idea for older houses) and antique chintz bed canopy.
Taken from the October 2013 issue of House & Garden.
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Oxfordshire Cottage Bedroom
This Oxfordshire cottage is a charming mix of old and new. Emma Burns of Sibyl Colefax & John Fowler worked with the existing features of each room to breathe new life into them. The bedroom's orange velvet curtains (out of shot) were an original fixture, though Emma had them remade and hung from an antique pole to match the quilt (which she sourced from Colefax and Fowler Antiques). The wallpaper is 'Alice' by George Spencer, while Oka is a good match for the embroidered cushion covers.
Taken from the April 2014 issue of House & Garden. Additional text: Emily Tobin.
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More stylish wallpaper designs
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Bed Alcove
The best thing about having a small or strangely shaped room is the opportunity it presents to use your space imaginatively. The alcove behind the door, in the home of designer Patrick Williams of Berdoulat design, has been turned in to a charming sleeping nook. Enclosed behind the curtain are shelves, and a lamp for reading. The room is painted in Farrow and Ball's 'Lamp Room Gray'; while the random-width floorboards were bought on eBay. Reclaimed drawers are used under the bed as storage.
Taken from the November 2012 issue of House & Garden.
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Small bedroom ideas
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Simon Upton
Teal Blue Bedroom
Will Fisher and his wife Charlotte of Jamb have completely refashioned their eighteenth-century house in south east London, relaying the wooden antique floors, reproducing the cornicing and installing period chimneypieces and stonework. The couple have done a great deal to bring that much sought-after - but rarely achieved - country-house look to the mainstream aesthetic.
Taken from the September 2013 issue of House & Garden. Additional text: Liz Elliot.
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Andrew Montgomery
Country manor bedroom
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Paul Massey
Toile de Jouy Bed Canopy
This spare room in the restored Cumbrian farmhouse of Annabel Lewis (owner of V V Rouleaux) has an antique canopied bed covered in toile de Jouy, with a nightstand painted in a matching hue. The unframed paintings and books piled by the bed add a relaxed look to the period features.
Taken from the January 2014 issue of House & Garden. Additional text: Lisa Freedman. Locations editor: Liz Elliot.
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Simon Brown
Apple Green Four Poster
Nina Campbell made the apple-green silk bed hangings in the spare room of Diane Nutting's manor house in Wiltshire, while the eiderdowns come from Counting Lambs, an excellent source for traditional silk versions like the ones in this house. They are available in a range of pretty colours and prices start from £399 for a single.
Taken from the June 2013 issue of House & Garden. Additional text: Virginia Fraser and Emily Tobin.
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Tim Beddow
Pastel Gingham Bedroom
The furniture in this bedroom at a French farmhouse was sourced from local antiques shops and markets in Tarn, south-west France. Raoul Textiles' 'Mahatma' design was used for the curtains, with the armchair upholstered in Kathryn M Ireland's 'Ikat Stripe'. Lamps from Vaughan add another layer of pattern.
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Headboard Ideas
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Simon Upton
Antique Iron Bedstead
New England chic pervades the upstairs of restaurant owner Keith McNally's Notting Hill house. Reclaimed floorboards are in the main bedroom, along with an antique iron hospital-style bedstead. Navajo blankets in rich shades of red are draped over the sofas and beds throughout the house. The effect is stylish and relaxed. If you are on the lookout for something similar, Sacha Knight's new venture, Knight Mills, does a similar look. Influenced by American Indian designs, her handwoven cotton rugs measure 180 x 120cm and cost £390.
Taken from the February 2013 issue of House & Garden. Additional text: Liz Elliot and Emily Tobin.
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James Macdonald
Blue Attic Bedroom
The spare bedroom of interior designer Diana Sieff's home (a converted chapel in Oxfordshire) has a vintage chic look, with a trio Lebanese plates hanging on the wall. 'Isfahan' porcelain plates by OKA, £179 for a set of four, would create a similar look.
Taken from the November 2013 issue of House & Garden. Additional text: Alice B-B and Emily Tobin.
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Michael Sinclair
White Rustic Country Bedroom
Loft conversions in cities and towns are often small spaces ideal for children or guests. The top of a barn conversion, on the other hand, can be a fabulously spacious main bedroom removed from the hubbub of daily life. Light colours and scrubbed or limewashed beams keep them bright. The main bedroom of Jo Vestey's Oxfordshire farmhouse has Jo's photographs ondisplay and a Japanese light on the desk. The dark beams, floors and desk contrasts nicely with the white rug and walls, giving an overall look that is both clean and rustic. Designers Guild's 'Padua Noir' linen throw decorates the bed. It costs £160.
Taken from the December 2015 issue of House & Garden.
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Hallway design ideas
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Simon Upton
Twin Four-Poster Beds
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James Fennell
Blue Country Bedroom
Several shades of blue are combined to great effect in this bedroom at Badminton House in Gloucestershire. The bed hangings are in 'Hops' by Colefax and Fowler. For a similar soft-blue paint to that on the walls of this room, try 'Sky Blue' from Papers and Paints. It costs £37.50 for 2.5 litres of emulsion.
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Modern bedrooms
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Simon Brown
Blue Sofa in Cosy Country Bedroom
For country bedrooms that have the space, a comfortable sofa placed at the end of the bed will make the room feel like somewhere to retreat to - day and night. Embroidered curtains match the bed canopy, adding pretty detail to the scheme. This room is in a seventeenth-century Cotswold house designed by Robert Hardwick. The doorway on the left leads to an ensuite bathroom.
(See the garden of Robert Hardwick's Cotswold house.)
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Andreas Von Einsiedel
Twin Country Bedroom
The owners of this Hampshire house, which in parts dates back six centuries, have gently modernised it, simplifying the layout, adding personality through decoration and giving it an established feel. A twin bedroom in the house is an ode to country style with floral wallpaper and brass bed frames.
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The Return of Chintz...
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Jake Curtis
Pale Lavender Bedroom | Bedroom Design Ideas
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Andreas Von Einsiedel
Richard Taylor and Rick Englert have built a Jacobean-style manor at Whithurst Park in Sussex. It took a year to get planning permission and two more to build. The result bears some of the signatures of the prodigy houses built in the era, such as Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire and Hatfield House in Hertfordshire. This spare bedroom on the second floor has a four-poster canopy bed and moulded fireplace in keeping with the manor's Jacobean look.
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In a bedroom at Cadland House in Hampshire, twin beds have block-printed quilts from India with deep yellows and blues pairing for a tasteful pop of colour. Yellow stripes are the backdrop to a gallery wall of artwork which also adds colour to the brown furnished room.
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Alun Callender
English Blue Stripe Scheme - Bedroom Design Ideas & Images
The late Lady Hindlip, the designer owner of this home, was described as a 'serial mover'. This Fifties property - her nineteenth home - was enthusiastically created into the perfect London pied-Ã -terre with a quintessentially English feel. The rug in the main bedroom of this is from Talisman. Botanical prints hang on the wall, which is covered with a striped wallpaper by Colefax and Fowler.
Taken from the December 2009 issue of House & Garden. Additional text: Jennifer Goulding.
English Cottage Bedroom Decorating Ideas
Source: https://www.houseandgarden.co.uk/gallery/country-bedrooms
