Why your spare room should be an exciting treat — and more fun than being at home
You might not have a pair of four-poster beds hanging around, unused — but if you do, fireworks can happen as this room transformation shows: Penny Morrison brought a spare room to life with this pair of four-poster beds and liberal use of graphic pattern.
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When the interior designer Penny Morrison was asked to decorate a holiday home, her remit was to make every bedroom feel grown-up and special. ‘I always think it’s nice to make the spare bedroom something of a treat to stay in — almost somewhere nicer than being at home.’
In this case, she decided the solution was to opt for a pair of four-poster beds.
‘A four poster is a key ingredient in a luxurious bedroom,’ she explains. ‘Fortunately, this bedroom had very high ceilings, so there was plenty of space to accommodate these two beds, which are my own design.’
The property had recently been significantly overhauled, a process that involved stripping the house to its bare bones and starting again in order to bring it up to 21st-century standards. ‘The result of the work was a very elegant interior, with cool stone floors and lots of fresh white paint, but it was rather stark in nature,’ says Mrs Morrison.
Striped fabrics in horizontal and vertical formats play a significant role in this scheme. She used Cotswolds-based Rapture & Wright’s Tribal Stripe in a pale Delft blue for the bed testers, curtains and valances.
The testers have a cut fringe from Samuel & Sons in ruby red along the scalloped edge to add definition.
The red-and-cream rug on the floor and the X-frame footstools are from her own collection. The mid-century bedside table is from Chelsea Textiles and painted in glossy crimson to tie in with the rest of the room.
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Penny Morrison — www.pennymorrison.com
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