‘Christmas feels quite magical here,’ says interior designer Sophie Garland of the beguiling Grade II-listed, 17th-century thatched cottage in the North Wessex Downs that she and her husband Freddie, founder of Freddie’s Flowers, and their children Jesse, six, and Sadie, two, head to for the holidays. ‘We’re both big on Christmas, and Freddie loves decorating for it. The cottage is so cozy with the fires burning, and we put fairy lights all around the trees outside.’
The couple bought the house, which was originally two cottages, three years ago as a bolthole from London – Sophie grew up in Wiltshire and has family in the area, and both she and Freddie went to school nearby.
Panoramic views of the Alton Barnes White Horse and Salisbury Plain, along with the cottage’s inherent charm, ensured instant appeal. ‘It just felt right. We wanted something totally different from being in a city,’ says Sophie. ‘Everyone told us we were mad buying a thatched cottage, but it has a charm that other houses we viewed didn’t have. We liked that it had history and that it was very quirky inside – everything’s slightly wonky, and we love the beams and low ceilings.’
Against the lacework of ancient timbers, Sophie, whose signature style celebrates color and pattern, has crafted a cozy and cocooning interior that showcases verve and vibrancy. ‘We wanted to bring in youth and fun,’ she says. ‘I lean heavily toward color and pattern – not necessarily overpoweringly so, but my interiors were never going to consist of muted tones.’
Throughout the downstairs, the walls are dressed in a soothing blush pink, ensuring cohesiveness. ‘By painting all the walls the same hue, it made the interior feel more spacious, too,’ she says. ‘It’s a very warm, cozy shade, but it doesn’t feel like you’re walking into a bright pink or colorful space, so you can then add in bold pops.’ Rich jewel tones were carefully chosen to inject drama, with fabrics often serving as the starting point for many schemes, including the kitchen, where the eye-catching emerald-green blind fabric makes a statement. ‘I loved the fabric with its leaves and trees and built everything around it,’ she says.
Sophie describes the kitchen as the hardest room in the house to decorate because it has the lowest ceilings, as well as a large inglenook fireplace where the original fire had been removed, resulting in a somewhat cavernous space. Her solution was to position a handy drinks bar in the fireplace. In front of it stands a generous wooden dining table, with chairs painted in a festive green, providing the perfect spot for Yuletide entertaining.
Bold pattern and color are the cornerstones of the living room, too, where a zany leopard-print sofa rubs shoulders with a raspberry-red sofa and a blue velvet armchair.
‘I love leopard print,’ says Sophie, ‘so the sofa was a must-have.’ The hero curtain fabric inspired the kaleidoscope of colors woven throughout the room. An eclectic feel is enhanced by humorous artwork by Sophie’s aunt, Edwina Sandys, dotted along the walls, while pillar-box-red bannisters continue the thread of red and provide a festive backdrop to the Christmas tree.
The bannisters were originally painted white, ‘but they seemed to stand out, as there wasn’t anything else white going on.’ Sophie also felt they didn’t live up to the upstairs corridor, which is painted to resemble a verdant tree tunnel with branches meandering up to the ceiling, and is the pièce de résistance of the cottage.
The mural came about because, with all the beams, it wasn’t easy to hang artwork, so Sophie commissioned decorative artist Eliza Downes to paint what is now ‘my favorite thing in the house. I wanted to work with the beams, and the corridor is right up in the roof, so it feels like you’re walking through the tree canopy.’
Although the colors and fabrics are modern, Sophie has juxtaposed them with antique furniture from Vinterior and local antiques shops to evoke a timeless feel. ‘When we came here, we didn’t have any furniture, so we started from scratch,’ says Sophie. ‘We trawled through antiques markets and shops to find pieces so it didn’t look like we’d bought it all at once. We wanted to include pieces that felt as if they had been there forever.’ That blend of old and new certainly ensures the perfect country Christmas.
