HOUSE TOUR | A Timeless 1700s Home in the English Countryside

Hi, Homeworthy. My name is Ambris. Welcome to our home in the English countryside. Can't wait to show you around. Come on in. You're watching Homeworthy, where we believe every home has a story. Like and subscribe for more. Hi, my name is Ambris Miller and we are in Suffolk in the UK. We are at our home that has origins of the 17th century. So I am originally from Birmingham, Alabama, born and bred. My family from as far back as we can trace are from Alabama. But I actually moved to the UK about 13 years ago. It was right after college. I went to Davidson College in North Carolina and I started working for Bank of America in Charlotte, which is only about 20 minutes away from Davidson. And there was an opportunity to move to London for a project. And I remember saying to my boss at the time, put me in coach. I want to go to the I want to go to London. I want to go to the UK. It was really because I had traveled abroad when I was at Davidson and we had about two weeks in London and fell in love with art, history, culture. And I was dying to get back. So the first opportunity that presented itself with the bank at the time, I jumped at it. And 13 years later, here we are. So we are in Suffolk in the UK. So we're in England is what the region called East Anglia. And it's a wonderful part of the countryside. So we are about an hour and a half by train into London or from London. I drive or take the train into London probably about two or three times a week. So it's pretty accessible from that perspective. But we're in a beautiful little village just outside of Barry St. Edmunds. And I absolutely adore it. It's funny because whenever my friends from back home in Alabama come to visit or friends or family, they say you move 3000 miles away just to move back home. And that's really because the village definitely has a kind of Alabama feel to it, kind of a small town, slower pace, especially outside of London. And it also means that you are able to get a bit more for your money than if you were to live in Our home has origins from the 17th century. It starts from the back. So about 1650 is when the original foundations were laid. Foundations, it's kind of built on earth because there weren't such things as foundations back then. And it's kind of a bit higgly piggly towards the back of the house. And as you move forward to the front of the house, that's when you see slightly larger proportion rooms, slightly higher ceilings. And again, that's just because as the families, as generations continued on that lived here had more and more money, they would upgrade or effectively add on an extension towards the front. And so the most modern part of the home is the actual the front, which is a bit of a Georgian exterior. I live in our home with my husband, Ben, and our 18 month old little boy named Hendrix and our two dogs, Theo and Edison. So we are in the foyer. So the way the house is built is that it runs, it has two long hallways that runs from the front to the back of the of the house on the top and then the bottom as well. And then all of the rooms go off of those hallways, which is really nice because it means that when you open your front door, you can see all the way through the back if I don't close this divider door. But this foyer, we really just wanted to have a bit of a punch when you first walk in. We also wanted to complement these original tiles, these Victorian tiles. But I like to say that this is kind of like the religious hallway as we move into the foyer just because I have some of my religious paintings up. I'm obsessed with anything Italian Renaissance or anything Italian or really continental European religious studies. So that's just my background in art and art history. But one of the things that we wanted to have is a focal point. We oomed and awed about this the entire time is having this Sputnik, this Murano Sputnik chandelier. It's probably the one thing that I had to really convince my husband on because of the size of it. And as you can see, it's not the biggest space when you walk in, certainly compared to some of the homes I've seen in America where they have 20 foot ceilings. We don't have that there. We don't have that here, rather. But what I think that this does is it adds a bit of contemporary flair, but also a focus on that artisan and craftsmanship, which I think is so integral to any piece. But the funny part about this is that even though we just about got it in this space, I couldn't actually add on the bottom Murano spikes because otherwise it would touch your head as you walked by. And my husband and I are quite tall, so we didn't want to potentially bump into it and knock it down. But I absolutely love this foyer. I think the fun part about it is this color green, which took me about two years to find. And I've painted this probably like four or five times, different colors of green. This is actually called a night vision green, and I think it's perfect. I think it has a very classic feel, but again, a punch and a pop of color, which I think is always really nice when you first walk into a home. I think it also really works nicely to showcase some of my favorite pieces, which are two French oils. They're from the turn of the century, so around 1900, French oils. And we actually got this when we were on honeymoon. So my husband and I were married in Tuscany, and in order for us to get back instead of flying, because we had to bring so much stuff down to Italy, we drove back and we just took a nice leisurely drive back and we went through Saint-Emilion. And of course, I have a habit of no matter where we are, see where I am on Google and then type in antiques to see if there's anything nearby. And there was this amazing antique shop just outside of Saint-Emilion. And this little man who had just floor-to-ceiling antiques, and he had these two pieces in the back. They're oil on wood. They're not by the same artist, but they would probably have been completed by almost like studies, academic studies. So probably two pupils in the same class. But I think they're just fantastic. There's nothing grand about them. I don't think that they're not pretentious whatsoever. They're just studies, but I think they're so beautiful. And every time I see them, I kind of think about our honeymoon and how much fun we had. What are my other favorite pieces in the foyer? And again, I just wanted to put everything that I love really a lot just in one space, right? But it's a beautiful Italian bust. It's done after an 18th, 19th century Italian bust. This is probably early 20th century, but I think it still is quite beautiful. And the idea is anything that has a skull from a motif perspective is just talking about brevity of life. So it's a memento mori is what the term is referred to, but I just think he's really fun. He's usually wearing a Santa hat during Christmas. He's wearing birthday hats if there's a birthday. Right now he's wearing a fez that I don't even know where I got this from, but I just thought it was quite fun. And then what I always love to use is bring a lot of different color and different stones and layer. And so these are some amber beads that I found when I was in Istanbul. But yeah, I just think he's really fun. Another fun piece that I think is really classic and you'll see throughout the home is these chinoiserie blue and white ginger jars. So these are porcelain ginger jars that I had commissioned when I did an artist residency in China about five or six years ago, if not a bit longer than that. And I fell in love with the region of the capital, the porcelain capital of the world. And it's something that again, you'll see throughout the home because I feel like it's classic, but also it's very fun. The artisan and the craftsmanship required is second to none. And it's something that Relic has really kind of become known for is just my general obsession with bobbin furniture and blue and white ginger jars alongside oil paintings. So there we are. I think I've stayed in the UK for so long, mainly because I love the history and the culture of it. So when I was at college, so when I was at Davidson College, I studied art and art history. And before that, when I was in Birmingham, I went to the Alabama School of Fine Arts, majoring in art. So to be able to live in a place that had so much rich culture and just had also so many different cultures culminating in London, especially as a hub, really made it hard for me to leave. So I work in finance, but I also founded a business called Relic Interiors. That's an art and antique stealing business about three years ago officially, though I've been collecting for many years before that. The ethos for Relic Interiors is really to make art and antiques transparent and accessible because I really don't think that you should be limited by your budget to live with beautiful things. So what's really fantastic about having your own art and antiques business is it means that you can decorate your house and it's constantly changing. And that's really where our home comes into its own because we're able to use the various rooms, the different settings to really kind of showcase the various pieces that I offer on Relic. It's all on Instagram and we have a website, but it's really fun to kind of play around with the decor of the home when I get new pieces in. So now we're in the snug. The snug is a bit of a different concept versus the UK versus America. I would say it's most akin to like a den, but the idea that it's snug, it's snuggly, literally snug as a bug in a rug, that type of mentality. And because of that, it's I guess the informal sitting room. And because of that, we really want it to kind of lean into it being a bit darker, a bit moodier. This is the perfect winter room because when it's dark and cold outside, we have the beautiful Inga Nook fireplace there. My husband loves doing a big fire, a roaring fire. And it's really nice just to have sat here, cozied up, reading a book or watching our favorite program. But yeah, it's probably one of my favorite rooms in the house. Again, I was in charge of all of the art, which was really nice. But my husband, this is his claims of fame. He picked out this color, this wall color. So it's called Mission Blue. And we knew we wanted to go for a deeper, darker color. We were thinking about a dark green, but I knew that I want the foyer to be a green. So I thought, I don't want this to look like a hunting lodge. So we finally settled on the color blue. And again, it's the process of discovery. What I think is really nice is that any of the deeper colors or bold colors, really, they really have the opportunity to showcase artwork. I am a bit partial to kind of a gold frame picture. So yeah, it works really well. Some of my favorite pieces here are... Oh gosh, where do I even begin? I love this Selene horse head. So this is from the Pantheon. This is a copy, a resin copy. This was actually a limited edition done and commissioned by the British Museum. It's done in mid-century. So again, it has a bit of age, but obviously it's not from the Hellenic period. But I think it's really striking. It's unexpected. I think my husband and I both like when you walk into a room and you just find something that makes you smile or something that's like, oh, I was not expecting that. So I've always also loved anything to do with horses. I love horse art, horse portraits. Two horse portraits are up here, which are some of my favorites, are by Alexander Puck. He's a European painter in the turn of, again, turn of century. So late 1800s, early 1900s. But he did beautiful equestrian portraits, mainly of military, military styling. But yeah, I just think those are really nice. And it kind of complements kind of the horse. There's a horse head thing going along here. What I find amazing is when we first moved into the house and we didn't have... We were living in a flat in London, so we didn't have a lot of furniture and certainly not furniture that we wanted to bring with us. So we spent the first year or two at auction houses, tons of auction houses around here and just in the countryside where you have these big country homes where people are moving on, people are downsizing, whatever the case may be. And it just means that you can get these beautiful antique pieces for at the time, you know, pennies on the dollar, which is or pence on the pound, depending on who you're speaking to. This is an example of that. This Georgian tall boy. Every time I see one now, I seem to try to buy it because I think they're beautiful. I think they're very kind of handsome pieces. And you get them in all different types of conditions as well. But I think all the kind of the nicks and the scuffs, it just adds to it. All the patina just really kind of shows its character and shows its age, which I think is quite charming. And obviously the ginger jars, the blue and white. Again, they kind of go with pretty much everything. Another piece that I really enjoy in here is this Italian Renaissance piece here. You probably can't see it. It's very dark. It needs to be cleaned, if I'm completely honest. So I'd have to take it to a restorer to do that. I have an amazing restorer in London. But it's effectively you see the central figure on the left and then you see animal studies. And this is, again, interpreted in various different ways. But it's a sign of enlightenment, a moment of being revealed to by the heavens or by an angel. Some people is kind of debating on which angel and which scene it's depicting. I just think it's really nice. And because of its deep tones, it demands you to get very close to inspect it. And I think that's always really nice when you have a piece that just commands the viewer to come a little bit closer and have a share a little bit of a special moment to it. Throughout the house, you'll probably notice that I have four window treatments. There are some curtains, some, but the vast majority are tapestries. Just because I am obsessed with textiles. I think adding texture into a room through various different types of textiles is the easiest way to make a room look lived in, to make a room feel like it's been collected instead of curated as such. And I have a few of these Uzbekistan Suzanis, and I think they're just beautiful. This one probably is only about 40 or 50 years old, but they were effectively marriage textiles. And the term Suzani kind of comes from thread or a million threads and the idea that the marriage will last as long as there are threads in the tapestry. That's one interpretation of it. But I just think that they're beautifully done and rich in color and they come in various palettes. I particularly like these because they feel a bit more muted, but they add a visual interest into a room. And then kind of returning back to the Ingunuk fireplace. Again, this is where we normally put the Christmas tree. This is where we spend the most time as a family. Me, my husband, my son, and the dogs. And it feels very kind of cozy. And it's nice to be able to have one of my pieces when we're not using the fireplace right now because it's in the summer. One of my favorite paintings that I've been able to source is a Henry Frederick Lucas Lucas painting. And I'm obsessed with his work mainly because he is just second to none regarding equestrian portraits. I think the detailing is really fantastic. This one is actually, I sourced this one for Relic, but I have one that I bought at auction that I don't think I could ever part with just because it's really quite special to me. But it's nice to have this on display here when we're not using the fireplace. But obviously, when you're using a fireplace, do not put any artwork above it, especially not one like as old as this one, because I'm sure modern fireplaces are a little bit better insulated, but this one is not. But yeah, this is the Snug. I think it just has such wonderful character to it. I really love the exposed beams. I think that's a really kind of fun and authentic element to the room. And this is where, again, we spend so much time as a family. Living in a home with a history as long as ours does, it's such a privilege. When my husband and I were looking at moving outside of London and buying our first home and buying a house, we knew we wanted a period property. We knew we wanted something that had character and a bit of a soul to it. And we could have never imagined we would find this house. So it's called Chapel House. We jokingly refer to him, that house, as chap. And we say that, you know, we just had such a good energy when we first walked in. And I know that people try to describe that, what that feels that when you know, you know, but we genuinely just said, this is it. Before we even set foot in it, actually, just from the pictures that we saw on the listing, we said this, this was it. This was embodied everything that we thought we wanted from a family home. And I think that we always say that chap is very happy with what we're doing because we're bringing him back to his former glory. So we are now in the dining room. This is probably the room that sees the most attention whenever we have friends over, which is often just because it's nice to have a big table spread and just have a lot of fun. If I'm completely honest, when we first moved out here, it was, it took us about five or six years to renovate the house slowly. But every year we've had a nice Thanksgiving where about 20 of our friends, 18 to 20 of our friends come up and they stay in all the rooms, sleeping on floors, on sofas, whatever the case. No one's precious here. And we extend this table. My husband actually made this table and so they can fit about 20 or 22. There's usually someone kind of sitting in the hallway because it goes so long, but it's such good fun. But I absolutely love this room. And I can't remember who said this, but the saying was, you know, make sure that your dining room is really kind of, leaves a statement, leaves an impression on someone because you don't, you're not in there for very long. And if that's so true, you'll probably spend, you know, several hours cooking and then have a meal and it lasts an hour, hour and a half or so. So make sure that it is memorable. And so that's the reason why I've included some of my absolute favorite things. I keep saying that and I think everything in this house is my favorite thing. But one being this crystal, French crystal chandelier of a ship. I have been pining for one of these for years. I think it was actually Kirsten Dunst who said that she had one in her, one of her homes and I never seen anything like it. And I just fell in love with it. And one of the beauties of, again, having Relic is that I've had an amazing time meeting so many different other dealers who are traveling around the world as much as I am finding and sourcing different pieces. And one of the dealers named Mike, he came across this bad boy. And as soon as I saw it, I said, you have to sell it to me. Like, I don't care. Just name your prices. I have to have this thing. Luckily, he was a good, he's a good friend and a fair dealer. So he didn't completely rinse me before. But it's one of my favorite pieces. It was, it can, it was a light. It can be wired as a light. However, you'll see there's not that much light in this room and that's intentional just because as, however you want to view it, we like eating by candlelight. And it's just, again, a bit of drama that you only use, you only do when it's, when your friends and family are over. So you might as well. It's normally just us sitting at the kitchen island if it's just the three of us. So whenever there are friends around, we make the effort and eat by candlelight. So I'm going to change this into a candelabra. And so whenever we have our next dinner party, it will be lit and ready. Another really nice thing about this room is, again, my husband built the table and it was our table from London. He's now like really upset because he's like, we need to throw that away. But it has such sentimental value to me. It's just a wooden table, you know, all the pieces we get sourced from a local hardware store in London. So it's kind of mix, a match of smaller bits of wood. But on the table is the 17th century Verdu tapestry. It's a date, it's late 17th century, early 18th century Verdu tapestry. And it's a Flemish tapestry that has so much history to it. Verdu just basically means it's green. What you can see is that they normally have a lot of different botanical studies. They have different motifs. This one in particular has a bird motif and again, foliage, which I think is really nice. It has this kind of, it's worn in places, but it has this type of warmth to it that I think is really quite nice. And again, it goes back to my kind of love of textiles and the use of textiles in a room. We don't eat on this, I promise. I don't want to have, you know, other art dealers and antique dealers really upset because I'm eating on the tapestry. We don't, I promise. We put it away safely whenever we're actually eating and just pull out a normal tablecloth. But I think it's a bit of fun and a bit of drama to complement the chandelier as well. And this room is just about drama, isn't it? One of the less dramatic, but hopefully as lovely pieces is one of my sofas that I designed. So for Relic Interiors, I not only buy and sell art and antiques and deal in art and antiques, but I also design furniture, indoor and outdoor furniture that's inspired by a lot of the antique collections, pieces I have in my collection. And this is one of the two-seater sofas from Chapel Veil Collection. I think what's really nice detailing, if I can brag a little bit, is this beautifully made French oak base off of a chair, a bobbin arm chair at the turn of the century. One of the few claims of fame that America has in regards to antiquities is, I want to claim the invention of bobbin. So there's a little bit of debate about that. But the idea originally was that bobbin is just made up of little bits and pieces of wood from a factory. And again, it wasn't considered highbrow at all. And in fact, it was a little bit considered a lower class thing. But as it became, as a lot of things do, it became in vogue and it made its way to Europe. And so you have French and English bobbin pieces of furniture. I love them because I think it's really kind of fun and whimsical. And I wanted to design a collection based off of that. And we came out with Chapel Veil earlier this year and it's been fantastic in regards to the reception of it. And it's really nice to have something that you've designed in your home, in your home that you can enjoy. And so yeah, this is one of my favorite pieces. It also comes in a three seater sofa, which is very amazing. We have that in one of the upstairs rooms. But yeah, just a kind of a pride and joy moment here. Okay, so to continue on with the drama of the dining room, another piece that I really enjoy being in here are two white peacocks. Now these are actually stage design sets or a part of a stage design. And they're done by the artists who worked at the Old Victoria or the Old Vic Theater for the best part of about 40, 50 years. They're all hand painted, hand done. And I think, again, they're just so fun and a bit different. It's just a bit odd, like a lot of the things in this room. But I think that it's really quite nice. They're subtle in their palette, but they're quite striking as objects. And I love the kind of the whimsicalness of this juxtapose the hyper realist drawings by one of my absolute favorite contemporary artists. His name is Ramadan Hamis. He is from Tanzania. I originally saw this portrait when my husband and I were at a friend's wedding in South Africa in Cape Town. And it was one of those moments where I saw it from across the room and I just beelined straight to it. And I just thought that has to be a photograph, but I know it's a drawing. And again, sure enough, it's these hyper realist drawings. And this is actually a self portrait. And since Ramadan has become a really dear friend of ours, you'll see a few of his works throughout the house. Really, it's important to me to have the black image throughout our home. I collect a lot of different pieces of art and I'm always drawn to figurative pieces. So it's really nice to have the black image juxtaposed to some of the continental European antique paintings that I have. I think it's a really kind of nice and fun play on design. So I am obsessed with having a really nice tablescape. And so wherever I go, I'm constantly collecting different plates and bits of China just because I think it's really fun to have something interesting when you're at a dinner party. Some of my favorites are, this is based off of a Spanish labrio, but it's a contemporary piece. So labrios are these big, beautiful salt glazed bowls and plates that have these kind of traditional blue and green design, which I think are really fun. That combined with something really fun and contemporary, like this Emma Bridgewater piece of ceramic. And again, it's just, I think they're really nice and fun and colorful. And then this one is probably one of my favorites as well. It's a Turkish design, hand-painted in Turkey. I think I smuggled this in my carry-on when I was coming back, but yeah. So as far as my personal style and how we decorated the house, it's a little bit of everything. I joke to say with Relic, we go from classical to kitsch. And I think that's very much the style of this home. We want it to be true to the bones of it. And it has so much original charm and history. So we didn't want to go super modern because that's not really our taste per se, even though we like modern pieces and we kind of sprinkle them throughout. We really want it to lean into that characterful, really kind of deep, traditional style with pops of culture and pops of color throughout. So each room, it's funny because when my husband and I, before we were married, we talked about what would be our dream home. And he said, oh, in my dream home, every room would have a different theme and every room would have different color. And I remember thinking at the time, like, ooh, I don't know if that would feel very cohesive or look very good. But I didn't say that because I still wanted to impress him. So I was like, yeah, definitely agree with that. But it's funny because now, as we've decorated each room, each room has taken on a different style. Though I feel like there's a common thread throughout, and I think that's the art that we bought together and then the art that I have for Relic. I think that's really the commonality between it. And you'll be able to see that as well. Even if they're different color schemes and different kind of ethos in each room, there's certainly a common denominator that I think is our style, which is classic, traditional with a bit of a twist. So we're now in the drawing room. Again, this is probably most akin to a formal living room or a formal sitting room. Again, I think this was before, would have probably been where the women would retire to speak after dinner time. But for us, it's really just a room to have a lot of the things that we've traveled and collected, things that we really adore. And we actually use this room a lot, especially after we put Bubba down to sleep. It's nice to just have a little bit of an adult time of just relaxing and maybe having a glass of wine, having probably a whiskey for my husband. Yeah, and just appreciating the things that we have. One of my favorite things in this room, in the focal point is the chandelier that I actually bought when I was in Paris. Wedding dress shopping with one of my best friends, Shannon. The intention of going to Paris was just a wedding dress shop. But of course, I just want to pop into this one little shop as we were walking to lunch. And again, this man had the most beautiful shop. It was probably the size of this room, just completely rammed full of different bits and pieces. And I saw this and I asked him, is it working? And he said, yeah, sure. Thinking like, I'm just going to trust him, sure. And getting this back on the Eurostar to London, I don't think I won too many points with my friend Shannon because I think she was so embarrassed with me having this massive box. But I think it was really fun. And again, just every time I see it, I kind of think of the fun time that we had. And it was such a nice girl's trip. Another thing that I love just about living in a period property and having such an amazing home to decorate is it has all these beautiful features that we had nothing to do with. We just moved in. But you get to decorate around them. In this room, it's really this marble fireplace. You could probably have this room completely empty and just have this fireplace and you'd be sorted from a design perspective. But of course, the magpie and hoarder that I am, I wanted to cover it with all different bits and pieces. But I just think that it has such a nice focal. It adds such a nice focal point to a room. It is a working fireplace as well. And it's one we don't actually use that often because when we want to fire, we go through to the snug with the bigger fireplace. But I just think that the detailing is beautiful. And it's one of those things that really makes me feel privileged to live in a house with this history. And certainly this would have been the reception room for the malt master whenever he had guests around. This would have been the room they probably spent the most time in as he was trying to impress them. This is a brass dog. That's what they refer to as a Hollywood Regency. So this would have been made in the 40s or 50s. It's amazing. For a long time, I had it on the coffee table because why not? You know, you just want to be unapologetically yourself. And I think all rooms should have a little bit of humor. And I think he's really fun. When I brought him in though, because I found him in London from someone who was selling them. He had had in his family for about 40, 50 years. It was his father's at the time. And he said, you know, we need to make space so we don't need a massive dog in our house. And so when I took him out of the boot of the car, my dogs start barking because I guess they obviously realize it's a dog type figure. But I think he's so fun, whimsical. It's one of those fun pieces on relic that I use quite a lot in the still lifes that I put together because I think it's, again, unexpected and very, a bit gaudy, but a fantastic way. Something that's maybe slightly more muted, but again, a bit more sculptural is what they refer to as a Benin bronze. So this is probably hidden behind the door here. It's very heavy. So I'm going to try to not break everything as I'm pulling him out. This is, I often, if I ever come across them, acquire them. This is a Benin bronze. It would have been a replica, probably mid-century replica of a 19th century original from the kingdom of Benin, which is now parts of Nigeria effectively. It's illegal to have the original one. So I want to reiterate that it's a replica, a mid-century replica. But I think they're just, they're so fantastic. You might've seen one in the dining room when we were in there. I always have them because I think that they're nice sculptural pieces and they're quite tactile that it makes you want to pick them up. And I think next to, say, a classical plaster bust, that either color and texture and material, juxtaposition really looks really nice in a room. And again, it's all about visual interests, but it's also about living with things that you love. So, and I love them. So he's here to stay. And one of the things I mentioned before is the piece of Hendrick Frederick Lucas Lucas that I probably would never part with. And I caveat this to say, virtually everything in our house is for sale. I joke when I say that, but I'm also kind of serious. Because we use our home as a way to showcase the various pieces. But there are a few things that my husband and I will never part with. And this is one of them. It's just a fantastic equestrian portrait by one of my favorite artists. Again, to be able to capture a horse in its likeness or anything in its likeness, this kind of hyper-realism, I really have an appreciation for. You probably saw that with the Ramadan Hamas hyper-realistic portraits. But I think it's really quite an elegant piece. It's very small. The detail is next to none. And it requires you to really kind of go as close as you possibly can just to see it. It's titled Mermaid. And I got this at auction probably about four or five years ago. And it's, yeah, it's one of my favorite pieces. I move it around the house sometimes just so I can always make sure that I see it. And we're spending a lot of time here in the drawing room the past few months. So I've moved it into here. But it's been in our bedroom. It's been in the landing. It's been in the kitchen. You know, it's, yeah, it's one of my favorite pieces. And it's definitely here to stay. This area in Suffolk had two different types of economies. One was brewing. So anything from like malt making, any type of brewers that are nearby. And also in textiles as well. And this house was a malt master's house. So anyone that was in charge of or the gentleman that was in charge of overseeing the organization of getting all of the malt in and processing it and then having it shipped out. He would live here. He resided here with his family. And then there's also servants quarters and servants stairways at the back of the house as well. But I think as soon as we walked in when we saw it for the first time and the estate agent mentioned that it had ties to Truman Brewery in London. My husband who's obsessed with craft beer said, okay, right, where do I sign? You know, he didn't actually have to tour the property. He loved that history in itself. And I'm very cognizant of when, even when I'm dealing in antiques that I am simply a custodian. You know, a lot of the pieces I have in my home have been here long before me and they will be here long after me. And I just feel like I just have this privilege right now in this moment to enjoy it. And then hopefully it passes on to a new owner or buyer or customer, whatever the case. And that's really the way I feel with CHAP is that we are simply the custodians and we want to do it the best service that we possibly could and add a little bit to that history. But you know, it's been around for 350 years. I'm sure it will be around for 350 more. So we're now making our way to the kitchen. I think everyone says this, that the kitchen is the heart of the home and it's definitely rings true in this household as well. I was going to try to pretend like I made all of this, but I certainly did not, certainly did not. But we do love to have carbs on the ready whenever you're a little bit peckish. So in this room, again, this is the part of the back part of the house. So it's a lot smaller in scale. It has lower ceilings you'll notice as opposed to say the drawing room or the foyer. And it's not a big space at all, but it certainly fits the purpose that we have it. We often have the majority of our meals here sat around. And even if it's just with either our parents or our friends that come around, we always just love having a big spread on the kitchen island, which is actually something I'm very proud of because we made this from an old carpenter's bench. So you might be able to see the old vice and it came from the workshop of a carpenter. And we loved it so much because again, that kind of antique and old, and this isn't antique, it's probably like early 20th century, but it just has a really beautiful kind of age patina to it. But to make it functional, we knew that we needed to have a white clean surface top because all the little holes in the scratch marks in the top of the carpenter's bench is not conducive for cooking. So we found an old restaurant that was a seafood restaurant and they were closing down and they had two massive stainless steel tables and we effectively cut the legs off of them. I built a sub frame underneath the tabletop and so that we could then attach it to the carpenter's bench. But whenever I want to make it look fancy, I put on a nice tablecloth and then just set out a spread. But when it's us, it's usually just the stainless steel version and then we just wipe it clean, especially with a toddler and their little smudgy fingerprints everywhere. It's a lot easier to deal with. On the table, we have a selection of pastries and homemade bread. I will say that my friend Liz jokes that every time I talked about moving out of London into the countryside, I said, oh, I can make my, I can finally make, have enough space to make my own bread. I can make my own bread. So we have homemade bread here, though I didn't make this bread, though I can make similar types of bread. And then we just have some pastries, which my husband loves. He works from home, so he loves it whenever I set it up like a patisserie or something. But yeah, it's really fun. And again, this is a very kind of cottagey kitchen. We spend a lot of time in here. You see the dogs are in here constantly. We cook. My husband does the majority of the cooking. So one of this kind of splurge items in the house for doing a lot of the renovation ourselves, it meant that we can really kind of splurge on the items that we really wanted was this eight-eye La Conge cooker range. And it has a double oven and it cooks a 20-pound turkey in about two hours. So it is well worth it. And when you have 20 hungry guests for Thanksgiving who want a turkey in two hours, we got, we have it sorted. But one of my favorite things in the house, let alone the kitchen, is this tea towel. And this is from, this says London. And it's just of one of the guards, but it's from my grandma. So we called her mama. And this was in her kitchen for years and years. So my mom's mom. And it's so funny that it's almost like she knew that one day I would move here or one day one of us would move here. But it's just really nice to have around and as a reminder of my roots in Alabama and of my mama. She was a formidable woman and hopefully I can be half as amazing as she was. So, but yeah, we just, we love to have some of our just incredible things here. But it's so, it's so practical. Like even this tablecloth, this is amazing. We got this in Rhodes in Greece. And, but, and it looks super delicate, but you can throw it in the wash, washing machine and air dry it. You know, it's one of those things that we live in a house that is lived in. You know, it might look curated now. It does not normally look like this. We have like a love, again, my American roots, having these like American quilts, these antique quilts. And what these are normally is kind of nicely draped now. But what this normally does is just cover this up because we have the dogs up here. You know, we have Bubba up here with his crayons and things. And, you know, we just, we want to make our home feel warm and inviting. And I would hate to have friends come around and they feel like they couldn't relax. And that's one thing that we both love to do is relax and have friends around. So, now I wanted to show you guys our downstairs powder room. Someone once told me that it's probably the room that guests, if they're only staying a short amount of time, will leave the most impact. So you should make it something memorable, rather. And so that's what we did here. And we refer to it as a little jewel box. But effectively, I just wanted to make it feel like you're in a Turkish hamam. And that was kind of led by having this sink that you would normally have at a hamam, which is basically like a Turkish spa, effectively. So I was able to find a marble dealer in Turkey and we told them what type of marble we were looking for, the dimensions, and they were able to hand carve it to the dimensions that we required. Because, again, this is a very small room, but we want it to have a lot of impact. And then we found these tiles. Again, it feels quite modern in the fact that the way they're laid out, but it also feels a bit rustic in the way they're done. Every one has a different finish and a different glazing on it. And that's from Mandarin Stone. And Mandarin Stone was also able to get us that Violet Carrara marble. That's a mouthful. So it's the deep veining of the marble, which I think is really nice. And again, a shower room, when we do have 10, 12 of our friends staying over, it's nice to just have an extra shower in the house so that you don't run out of hot water too quickly. But that's it. Okay, so now we're going to go upstairs to see some of the bedrooms and the nursery. I mentioned before that some of my favorite pieces of art really kind of include the black image. And sometimes it's very hard to find pieces, antique paintings, oil paintings with the black image. But this was absolutely one of my favorite paintings in the house. I think it takes pride of place. It's an 1856 copy of a piece that was done in the 1820s, I believe, called the Young Courtesan. Or it's sometimes referred to as the Allegory of Infidelity. And you have the central female figure here that's looking out to the viewer as potentially her next lover. And she's surrounded by three figures that are obviously all eyes on her and giving her different treats and treasures to win her heart. But she's obviously on to the next. I just think that it's really quite beautiful, the depiction of the black figure on the right side of her or on her left as she looks at it. But I just think that it's a fantastic piece. And again, it was originally painted by Alexandre Francois. But yeah, it's one of those things that I love, that image. And then behind me, you'll see another Ramadan Hamas's piece that I actually gave that to my husband for our first anniversary because it was paper as the anniversary gift. And because I had become good friends with Ramadan, I commissioned him to do this piece. And it's called Shushu, which means grandmother or old mother. And I think it's just beautiful. And so many people, as they come up onto the landing, they think that it's a photograph. And then you get very close, you can see that it's a drawing. And I think it's just, it's magnificent, honestly. And it's such a delight to see every day. Now we'll make our way to one of the guest bedrooms called the map room. And we titled it that or named it that because we wanted to, again, have a lot of the pieces that we sourced from around the world in one room. And it feels like an explorer's room as such. That was the original intention. Now it's just turned into, like, it feels like a, like your grandmother's sewing box. Because I keep, when my husband's not looking, I keep putting more color and more frill in it everywhere. But what I love in this room, very selfishly, is my three-seater bobbin sofa. So this, again, is from the Chapel Bell collection. And I think it's really nice. It's done in a dust rose velvet. And it's just super comfortable. One of my friends, Claire, and her kids came up for a weekend and her little girl, Lily, just was in love with the sofa. And we would catch her just asleep or curled up in the corner of it. And it just, I don't know, it just made my heart sing because that's exactly what we want. We want well-made, comfortable furniture built for a lifetime. So, but yeah, we were able to just have a little bit of everything in this room. This is an original bobbin piece. This is early 20th century. And again, this is kind of the motif that inspired the new Chapel Bell collection. And you'll probably find a billion examples of bobbin throughout my house. And we jokingly say it's an obsession, but it's true, I think it is. But this is, yeah, this is the map room. And this actually, this quilt, again, talking about textiles, I actually received that from a friend that I met on Instagram. So Own a Relic, which is where I sell the antique artwork and the bobbin furniture and also textiles. I've been able to meet a load of different amazing dealers, but even more amazing are friends on there, customers, people who want to collaborate, people who also share this love of interiors. And one of them, a lovely one of my lovely followers sent me this because I kept complaining I could not find enough quilts, but now I have too many. So I feel like I should repay her the favor. But yeah, Relic has been wonderful for that. One of my favorite design tricks, or maybe it's not even a trick, just one of my favorite design techniques is layering rugs, layering different colored rugs, textured rugs, style of rugs. I actually saw this originally when I was in South Africa and we were staying at this beautiful Airbnb and it was just a mismatch of 15 different rugs in their sitting room. And my husband and I both said like, this is just so fun, it's so nice. And so it was certainly a conscious effort when we had the time and space to finally, to layer the various different rugs. And again, it kind of goes back to what we were talking about, this kind of this idea of textiles and adding texture and color. And it means that you don't have to be too serious about your interiors. You can just put together what you like. And if it's all coming from you, from your own aesthetic, it will all pull together. So this rug is one that I got when I was in Morocco with a good friend named Tia. And it was so funny because you should have seen us going through the airport with like 17 bags, each just full of Berber rugs, and rugs from the Atlas Mountains. This is a contemporary rug here that's supposed to look antique and worn and things. And then this is the Afghan rug. And this is again, just a wool Afghan rug. And I think altogether, they're just so nice. That next to the quilt, next to the Susani, next to the French pelmet, it's just all of it. All of it together, I think just really kind of pulls together to make a really beautiful piece. And that's what I love to offer at Relic or through Relic Interiors. And in fact, I commissioned this ITCAT tablecloth, this round tablecloth to have made because I like the idea of just adding a splash of color in a guest bedroom that you can just kind of change very easily, but it's just fun. And it just kind of shows that it has a nice texture to it. But yes, I love layering. I think it's a really kind of fun and easy way to bring a new life to a room without changing your furniture, a massive financial outlay. So now we're in Hendrix's room or the nursery. Though I say it's a nursery, we were just saying that it actually is a room that he can really grow into. The initial thought around this room is surrounded by the color of the wall. It's called a pate color, but I really wanted this kind of terracotta color to be the base, the foundation of the room, namely because I really wanted to use this color somewhere in the house. So, and it didn't feel too feminine, didn't feel too masculine. So it was a perfect palette to then create this room around. And the theme of it is really just started out as safari themed based off the paintings that are behind you. But what I really love in this room is the collection of antique samplers here. So what samplers used to be before there were phones and the computers and things, little girls would practice their alphabets or practice their sewing skills on what they would refer to as samplers. And these are the sewn things. So they normally just have the ABCs or maybe a Bible verse or something of that. But what I think is really quite charming about them is that they all have the date in which they're made, the name of the person who made it, and then the age. So this one is from 1882 at age nine and her name was Sarah Miles. Things like that is quite sweet. And occasionally, which I think is really endearing is that you will find a little bit of a spelling mistake and it's because it's done by a child. But I just think that was quite nice to have Hendrix grow up around something like that. And then also he's practicing the ABCs, which is never a bad thing. My obsession with Bobbin continues with the crib, but I think the kind of most exciting thing about this room and really the kind of the thing that spurred the design of it was this collection of 19th century paintings of safari animals. So I have an amazing dealer, his name is Richard, who deals in all types of art and he's absolutely fantastic. He's the loveliest person in the world. And he was able to find these from a private estate. And when I saw them, I fell in love with them. And he said, I don't want to split them up. I don't want to sell them individually. I want to sell them as a set. And when I saw them, this is years before I had Bubba, I just thought, oh my gosh, those would look perfect in a nursery. But I don't want to jinx it. So I bought them with the intention of selling them on, but secretly hoping, I think I put them in a price point that it was too high that anyone would actually buy. So they wouldn't actually sell. So and as soon as we found out that we were expecting Bubba, I immediately took them off from sale and knew that they were going to have the pride of place in his room. So it's funny because I'm sure we could simply Google what this animal is, but my husband, I just like to pretend like make up different names for it. And Hendrix is starting to make up different names for it as well. But yeah, I just think this is such a nice room. We want it to have a big couch because if you've been there with newborn days, you know, you won't be getting a lot of sleep. And so we've spent many a night's sleep in here while he's trying to trying to get some rest. But this is this is probably my favorite room because it's the room that my little boy went from a little baby to this rambunctious, willful toddler. So yeah, it really holds a special place in my heart. Home to me means a place where you can genuinely be your authentic self. I don't care how cliche that sounds, but I often speak to people and when we talk about decor or styling or what to do with their interiors, and they say, oh, I've seen this trend. I really like that. I see that trend. I really like that. And that's fantastic. But surely you want your home to be a place that really kind of embodies everything that you believe in, everything you love and cherish. You know, you shouldn't follow some hashtag or some trend because it seems popular right now. We always say we have the absolute luxury of being able to travel around the world, visiting family and friends and seeing new places and doing new things. But we always say as soon as we come home, there's just kind of this warmth that we really just can't wait to get back to. And I think that if you can create that, you know, I think you really kind of won the lottery. Thanks for watching. For more homeworthy content, be sure to like and subscribe.