One thing we like to do as interior designers is look at other people’s work so this weekend we took ourselves off to The Weary Sportsman in Castle Carrock, near Carlisle. The Weary as it is more usually known has carved out a niche for fine dining with comfortable rooms, in fact it’s tag is ‘Good Food with rooms attached’.

The Weary only has five rooms and as it is essentially a village pub, these are low ceilinged and not desperately spacious. But that’s not the point with The Weary. The owners, Ian and Gill have used the space well to create exceedingly comfortable rooms, with decent bathrooms that you just want to stay in. We checked in late afternoon and stayed in the room till it was time to eat and were in no hurry to leave the following morning either.

This of course is the whole point of good design, whether it’s your home or for your guests, to make the person using the space feel comfortable and enjoy themselves. Simple design with quality furnishings and attention to detail made the whole experience a memorable one.

The Weary is not cheap and I considered afterwards whether I thought it was value for money, then realised that the question was the wrong one to ask. Had I enjoyed the experience? Definitely.

There are some stunning bold wallpaper designs available today but they do have to be applied with care. We don’t mean that they should only be hung by a an experienced decorator but one who also has an eye for detail.

A couple of years age we redecorated our stairs and hall with a design from a collection by Nono. This wallpaper has a single strong motive running down the centre, the remainder of the paper being neutral.

Traditional wallpapering instructions tell you to start in a corner and work along the length of the wall but using this approach would have resulted in some ugly mismatches and the pattern possibly ending up struggling across a corner.

Our solution was to look at each wall individually, work out it’s strongest feature and decide how the wallpaper would fit best. On one wall for instance we had a large mirror that was to be the focal point, another wall had the window in it and again we balanced the wallpaper to match the shape. This meant using more lengths than usual but the result has been more than worthwhile.



Contrast this with a recent job where we supplied a similar bold patterned wallpaper to a customer. The decorator did a fine job of hanging it but we felt something was not quite right. There was a large alcove about 10 ft wide on one wall the pattern was cut through on one side and in full on the other, it just looked unbalanced.

So there you go - before hanging your first length work out how it’s going to look when the whole wall is finished and if necessary start from the centre of the wall or even at any point that will make the pattern fit better. You’ve got to live with it every day so you might as well get it right..

Whilst our work covers a varied cross section of styles, here at Signature Interior Design we do have a weakness for bold contemporary ideas. One of our favourite design houses is north west based Nono. Earlier this year they launched a new collection of wall art including some examples from the ‘Wild at Heart’ collection. This includes many audacious designs in stunning colour ways and bold patterns.

We’re working on some rooms for a home that is being re-developed in Windermere and have proposed some of these designs to be used there.

In the meantime here’s a taster.