For interior designer Vanessa Macdonald, the essence of a country house should be ‘livable, easy, holding loads of people while holding its own,’ she enthuses of the four-bedroom, three-bathroom Cotswolds family home she has shared with her art dealer husband James and their two sons since they bought it 19 years ago.
Despite having hundreds of boys running through its corridors over the years, ‘it still scrubs up nicely,’ she laughs, no doubt due in large part to Vanessa’s belief that decorating should feel ‘long-lasting and not shouty’. When they first moved into the elegant Georgian house, original details and fireplaces had been removed, floors lifted and spaces left unloved. But their budget for improvements was tight. ‘We could literally only afford to buy the house and move in,’ she recalls.
So they put it together with odds and ends, ‘trying to make the house look as good as we could from borrowed and hand-me-down pieces, or client cast-offs, which I’d paid for, but wouldn’t necessarily have chosen myself.’ Since then, the couple have slowly renovated it to suit their tastes and needs, starting with reinstating the architectural bones (cornicing, skirting, architraves, doors).
‘It’s so important to invest in quality,’ says Vanessa. ‘If you do these things properly, you won’t have to do it again.’ They added a double vanity unit and shower to the main bathroom, updated curtain headings and finials to feel ‘less fussy’ and gradually swapped downlighters for pendants, wall lights or table lamps. ‘I’d much rather have less light than too much.’
Proper fireplaces have been fitted in every room, because, Vanessa explains, ‘they provide an essential focal point that connects everything together’. Plus a two-bedroom, one-bathroom guest house was fashioned from a former garage and office built in the 1980s. ‘We gutted it, lowered the ceilings, clad the internal walls with horizontal boarding to lend character and a fireplace gave it a cottagey feel,’ she says.
Walls washed in landscape shades of gentle pinks, blues and greens made the home feel relaxing and uplifting, says the Canadian-born designer who first worked for Sotheby’s in New York, then London, before going to work alongside the late Melissa Wyndham in 2002 after a course at the KLC School of Design. With Melissa, she honed her decorating skills on great British houses such as Petworth House, Longleat and Glamis Castle. Since inheriting the business following her mentor’s passing in 2015, Vanessa now works on everything from country estates and contemporary apartments to ski chalets.
It was important to make the house look fresh but feel traditional. ‘I wouldn’t get anything modern past James,’ Vanessa laughs. The couple’s love for classical things – antique brown furniture, a few old master paintings, Robert Kime fabrics – sweeps through every room. ‘How to create a lovely layered-over-time look is something I learned from Melissa,’ she reflects. This can be felt in the hallway, where a delicate 19th-century bobbin chair sits below a series of inherited but reframed monochrome engravings and a Regency-style hexagonal lantern from Howe.
The same is true in the living room, where a blend of lamps, from ‘an old Soane one that’s quite contemporary and an 18th-century porcelain from Christopher Butterworth’ team with big, comfy sofas, deep armchairs, and an antique lacquered box used as a side table. ‘It’s so important to have tables near where you’re going to sit with a drink’, she says.
Joyful bursts of color come through the couple’s collection of British art, chosen with much deliberation – ‘It takes time to buy art because we like to buy from auction houses so we see everything in person’ – and flowers in every room. ‘That’s what’s wonderful about living here, I can fill the house with things I grow.’
It has given them a lifestyle they might not have had in a city like London – bringing up two boys ‘with a cricket pitch outside our front door and space for birthday parties and sleepovers,’ she beams. And while it’s not a massive house, it feels spacious and relaxing. ‘The moment I walk through the door,’ she says, ‘the pressure lifts. We can just focus on being together as a family.’
Q&A with Vanessa Macdonald
INSPIRATION
Melissa Wyndham, of course. She was fierce but funny, unbelievably kind and loyal, and had phenomenal taste. She had the ability to walk into a room and instinctively know what it needed.
GO-TO DESIGNER
Robert Kime for the timeless linens inspired by his archive of antique textiles.
WHAT’S ON YOUR COFFEE TABLE?
Books – Vanessa Bell, Frances Davison, Goya.
FAVORITE PLACE TO VISIT Rousham in Oxfordshire for its gardens designed by William Kent.
WORDS TO LIVE BY
‘Never let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game’ (Babe Ruth).
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