Dear Fiona
Is there a magical means of having dogs, children, and a beautiful house?
My children are now teenagers, an age by which I thought the worst would be over. It transpires I was wrong. I’d like my 15-year-old son to be able to invite his friends over – and so I seem to have four hulking boys, all approaching six feet tall, sprawled in my sitting room. The sofa, which was really old and cheap, has now broken – probably due to their enthusiastic interaction with the PlayStation. I’ve got budget for a new one and budget for some other changes too. What I don’t have is space for a separate room for my children to entertain their friends in – we’re in London, and can’t upsize.
My natural style is quite English country house, and I’d like the house to feel warm and welcoming and beautiful – and I love the look and texture of taffeta, and lovely Colefax cream-based chintzes – but I think it needs to be indestructible, and I wondered if you’ve got any tips? So many of the houses covered in House & Garden belong to people with families – what are their tricks? And how do I deal with the PlayStation? I don’t want to put it in my son’s room as I need to be aware of how long he’s playing it for.
Love,
A less-than-relaxed mother
Dear Fiona
My query concerns carpets. I live in the country with dogs, a lot of mud in the relevant seasons, and small children, and I’m at a loss when it comes to a good idea for carpets.
I love carpets upstairs, for there is nothing better than getting out of bed and sinking one’s feet into a delightfully plush carpet – which rules out the smart country options of sisal or any sort of rush matting equivalent. Nor do I like looped pile options.
Then – I’m stuck on colour, in that I don’t seem to be able to get away from cream, because other colours either seem too old fashioned or too city (grey). And yet cream is not suited to country living with dogs and children.
So help! What are your thoughts? What colours would you suggest to mix with lots of mahogany and walnut furniture, and Jean Munro and Robert Kime fabrics?
Love,
VTF
Dear both,
I hope you’ll understand if I answer you together, as your questions are related, even if your children are different ages. For your styles don’t sound dissimilar, and nor do your problems. Incidentally I’m going to start generally and get more specific, so VTF if you want to skip ahead to find the answer to your carpet quandary, please do. Otherwise, let’s look at decorating for harmonious co-existence, which is different from decorating either with children, or for children (or dogs), in that we’re considering reception rooms rather than their bedrooms (or kennels). And you’re right that it can be tricky; nobody necessarily aspires to a scheme that allows for squashed bananas and a PlayStation – and yet the reality is that often these things need to be considered; “rooms have to work for everyone,” says Victoria von Westenholz (two young children.)
If you consult the grand dames of early 20th century interior design, among them Edith Wharton, Elsie de Wolfe, Dorothy Draper – all of whom wrote manuals which are still helpful today - you’ll find next to nothing on decorating for co-existence, because children then weren’t part of an interior; instead, they had their own quarters. Thus the closest you get is Edith Wharton’s addressing of the schoolroom, and her point that “daily intercourse with poor pictures, trashy ‘ornaments,’ and badly designed furniture may, indeed, be fittingly compared with a mental diet of silly and ungrammatical story-books.”
Happily, English country house style – which you both espouse – would definitely be Wharton-approved, and, having dogs and children at its core, is 100% adaptable for what you have in mind, even if you don’t have the luxury of space that would enable the existence of a separate playroom and a child-free drawing room. For it’s forgiving, especially if you do as Henriette von Stockhausen of VSP Interiors (two teenagers, dogs and horses) suggests, and err towards colour (probably not cream!), pattern, antiques “especially those that are already imperfect - texture and life is already in them so you’re not going to notice anything else,” and layering. That last “will cover a multitude of sins,” points out Henriette. “Rugs can be moved around over fitted carpets, and cushions and throws turned over.” Choose the right rugs, and they’re even washable.
That element is particularly pertinent because, for little children, Susan Deliss (two teenage boys and a whippet) suggests instituting a theoretical plimsoll line. Above it, you can have exquisite lampshades and blinds that sticky fingers can’t reach, but a £20,000 rug under the table at which you all eat is a very unwise investment. That said, you still need “to keep the floor clear,” says Susan. “Canine and child plastic objects all over the floor are incredibly unpleasant to walk through, and unsightly.” This necessitates a good toy box; one of the most attractive I’ve seen is Victoria’s – her sitting room hosts a knee-height 19th century needlepoint house which she can collect everything into. An ottoman with a lid also works well, such as the one that Buchanan Studio (two small children and a dog) have designed; theirs even has a clever loose cover that can be whipped off for evening entertaining.
Of course, as children grow, so that plimsoll line rises – and I have first-hand knowledge of just how hard it can be to guard against a teenage child contentedly collapsing onto a sofa in wet swimming trunks ‘they’ve forgotten they’re wearing’ – or a dog spotting the opportunity to curl up among a pile of cushions, when a child has walked it but not dried off its feet. What you can control is how that sofa (and indeed any armchairs) is covered. For full indestructability, first know that a woven pattern will be more durable than a print, then Henriette suggests either loose covers which can be regularly washed (I’ve used a woven ticking for mine, which is inexpensive and machine washable – and soaks up salt water before it gets to the feather filling), or upholstering a sofa in a rug, kilim or “vintage Anatolian fabric”; as for an incredibly sturdy design, Henriette recommends George Smith. You can, of course, simply put a blanket or throw over your sofa – and this is good for a dog (especially since it’s easy to remove when you’ve got guests) - but “tuck it in,” says Susan, “or it slides off the minute someone sits on it.”
Similar applies to anything that children are going to put their feet up on – then, remember that growing children don’t always have complete awareness of the sheer length of their limbs. I don’t entirely agree with the concept of ‘child-proofing’ – and nor does Victoria, who alongside that divine toybox has glass lamps and a collection of Florence St George ceramics (by the time they’re old enough to reach these things, they’re also old enough to know that they’re precious) - but put them on the mantlepiece or a sideboard rather than on the table next to the sofa where an energetic elbow can easily accidentally put paid to their precarious existence. Finally, the dreaded PlayStation. So many people I know have acquired them under duress, but they were how so many of our children kept in touch with their friends during the lockdowns; equally, I’m reliably informed that some of the best new classical music is being composed for video games, and let’s not forget that the V&A had an entire exhibition devoted to their artistry. “Resistance is futile,” says Henriette – which doesn’t make the kit attractive though, and the best thing to do is to employ clever trickery to conceal them when they’re not in use, “and then have them on an extending arm.”
However, if you can carve out separate space for your children and their interests, especially as they grow older, it is worth it. Generally, they’re so overjoyed to have it that it doesn’t terribly matter where or what it is; Henriette has put her children’s PlayStation on a landing along with “a huge, deep old Howard sofa, covered in a Ralph Lauren dark grey blanket material so you can’t see a thing on it.” Alexandra Tolstoy (three children - teens and a tween - and a Norfolk terrier) has had a tin shed built for her boys in the garden of her little Oxfordshire cottage, by Rollo Dunford Wood, which “has totally transformed our lives,” she says. In the course of my travels (poking around other people’s houses) I’ve seen barely-converted garages, cubbies in attics that you have to crawl into, situations where children have decided to share a bedroom in order to have their own approximation of a sitting room in the vacated bedroom, and even a Harry Potter-like cupboard under the stairs (it’s become a very bijou animation studio.)
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And now, on to the carpet. My first thought – and indeed Henriette’s - is sage green, dusky pink, or a soft blue-grey (though that last is tricky – it can look accidentally corporate.) And I know that you’re not keen on sisals, in part because of their prickliness, but Henriette says that Tim Page Carpets do very soft ones, in many different colours and shades, which might be handy to know. (My mother carpeted her house in Yorkshire to match the colour of her dog, so that the hair wouldn’t show. This was, initially, a genius move. However the current dogs are not the same golden colour that Twiggy was.) Another idea is patterned carpet, which may strike you as somewhat 1970s and reminiscent of event spaces in less-than-salubrious pubs, but such carpets – which we can all agree are useful at hiding all sorts of things - are on their way back; Martin Brudnizki has installed them at the famous Berkeley Square nightspot, Annabel’s, and Sibyl Colefax & John Fowler alumni Daniel Slowik declares himself a fan, “even in domestic settings. It adds another dimension – and don’t be afraid of placing further rugs on top of it.” Leopard-print carpet was used to tremendous effect by that bastion of Proustian elegance, Madeleine Castaing, in the drawing room of her house outside Paris. There were large French windows leading directly into the garden, and her dog, Bobby, was able to come in and out at whim without anyone worrying about mud. (Stark Carpet does a good contemporary version, if you’re tempted to follow suit.) Whatever you choose, however, you might want to return to Henriette’s advice about layering; an inexpensive, washable flat weave on top of the fitted carpet will be enormously appreciated when you’re dealing with furiously spat out Calpol in the middle of the night.
But, having said all this, you don’t actually have to focus on indestructible. For the alternative is to have what you want – and face whatever consequences, knowing that beauty lies beneath. One of Ben Pentreath’s clients, Lucy Clayton (a tween, a toddler and a dog) has just had pink moiré silk cushions made up for a bench-come-window seat. “I think there are actually fewer disasters if you’re more relaxed,” says Henriette. “Nothing makes children want to touch quite so much as the instruction not to.” Which isn’t to say that disasters don’t happen; Georgina Montagu’s heavenly book on dogs and interiors, Top Dogs, recounts the story of the canine companion who chewed a hole in a pink stair carpet that had taken four attempts to get right, and we’ve all dealt with cricket balls through windows, spilt milk, drawing on walls, and much more besides. But, as the great Nina Campbell (now onto grandchildren) so wisely says, “a house is for living in. You can’t lose sight of that.”
I hope that this helps,
Love Fiona XX
