Arabella St John Parker, Houses & Gardens Editor at Homes and Gardens magazine takes a tour around a beautiful country house in Hampshire with interior designer Stephanie Dunning who designed the decor.
The client Stephanie worked with on this home is a businesswoman and uses the dining room to entertainment both friends and business partners.
The dining chairs were already part of the dining room before Stephanie began working on it. The large dining table is big enough to seat 16 people when extended.
The chairs were the starting point here and Stephanie explains how though they are beautiful, the colour was difficult to work with. She mentions how historically, dining rooms were north facing rooms, which meant they could be strong colours because they’d be used mainly at night. However, this dining room is side facing with lots of light so it had to be decorated in colours which would work both in the daytime with the sunlight and in the evening with lower light. Stephanie settled on using a deep mousy grey scheme and changed the light shades to match. She mentions that originally there were heavy linen curtains, which were replaced with roman blinds with a subtle silver pattern, which look beautiful both in the daytime in the light and at night when they are dropped.
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