Apr 20, 20214 min read

Zenterior's "Interior Design Masters" challenge

We were very amused to find that during our fitting of a luxury Cornish holiday villa refurbishment, BBC 2 aired the season 2 finale of "Interior Design Masters" featuring refurbishments of two of the neighbouring villas.

Who could resist a compare and contrast showcase? We couldn't! If you would like a catch up, you can watch the episode here until Wednesday 23rd March 2022.

The Brief

All interior design challenges begin with a brief. Murphy's brief was to create a family getaway, Ford's to create a boutique girly escape.

Our brief was to give the villa a general refresh and update in a style that would be appealing to holiday makers seeking a Cornish coastal holiday. We had a budget of a maximum of £10,000 and six weeks to get it guest ready.

Before

The first impressions of what we were working with revealed a number of key elements that needed updating, including big ticket items like the kitchen that could quickly eat through the budget and time constraints if allowed. There was a very dominant purple theme, which doesn't immediately scream "coastal holiday" to us, so it is fair to say we were keen to move away from this.

The Designs

With such a tight deadline to work within, the initial ideas had to be put together very quickly and indeed a few substitutions took place due to Covid and Brexit related supply issues, but within a few days we had the following designs approved with the client.

Open Plan Area

We had to prioritise banishing the purple kitchen, so in order to accomplish this within budget we opted to replace the doors, drawer fronts and trims. We are in love with deep blue kitchens, but as the kitchen was situated in the darkest corner of the room, we opted for a mix and match of blue and white to keep the look fresh. We opted for a more modern trim style paired with shaker doors.

Having replaced the curtains with a lovely smoky blue crane print that instantly reminds us of the herons that can be sighted fishing in the rivers near here, we reupholstered alternate sofa cushions in two of the blue tones.

We replaced the artwork over the console with a casual coastal painting that could easily be of one of the nearby fishing villages and introduced an accent yellow to bring a bit of fun to the scheme.

Bedroom 4

This is the smallest bedroom in the villa and features a dwarf double bed that is used for single occupancy. The dark bedside and headboard in this room felt quite imposing, as well as the headboard not being wide enough to show off the extra width of this bed. The camel coloured bed base with visible join was also rather unattractive.

We changed the headboard for a painted oak slatted version at the correct width and the bedside to a smaller oak model which instantly makes the room feel bigger. Adding a box pleated bed valance to match in with the roman blind and an accent cushion help to give the scheme depth. We couldn't resist putting in the fun VW campervan artwork over the bed.

Bedroom 3

Twin/Super king rooms need to be versatile as the arrangement changes depending on guests requirements. This room had the camel coloured zip-and-link duvan bed bases with single headboards attached to each one. The accent purple had found its way onto a feature wall, and there was inappropriately sized and oriented artwork over the bed.

We replaced the single headboards with an oversized wall mounted one. This way the headboard covers whether the beds are linked or in twin format. We have a special method of making bed valances for zip and link beds which enables them to be linked together and look like one valance with a central box pleat. We used a weave for the bed valances that features the different blues used in the scheme.

The purple Roman blinds we replaced with a blue stripe and we introduced some geometric accent cushions. The artwork was absolutely my favorite find for this room, with the relaxing shoal print containing all of the colours from the scheme.

The accent wall we painted over with Jeane from Fired Earth, which has a fabulous depth of colour, as well as having enough grey in its tone to give it a real elegance.

Bedroom 2

This is another twin/super king room, and one that is a really interesting shape. The angles of the room reminded me of being on a ship, which is likely why I followed that theme here.

We again replaced the purple paint with Fired Earth Jeane and added an extra wide wall mounted headboard, this time with matching bed valances to help the structural feel of the room. We used smaller bedside lamps to offer an azure accent and to help avoid the space feeling cramped. We followed the sea theme with a wave print roman blind, Alfred Wallis Blue Ship cushions and a local painting of St Mawes.

Main Bedroom Suite

The main suite is probably my favorite room in the villa. You could see it had tons of potential with its lovely roomy feel, balcony and plenty of natural light.

We only ever tend to use vertical blinds in offices as they are good at controlling light, but not very attractive to look at, so we replaced the vertical blinds with beautiful, watercolour print blackout curtains. We added a feature wall in a stylised whale and wave design and introduced scatter cushions to the bed that mimic the pattern style from the wallpaper and pick up the accent colours in the scheme.

The beautiful lamps we added here have a sand textured bottom with the blue and teal glaze over the upper part. They both visually and textually place you straight on the beach, so they were just perfect for our coastal feel here.

We added some seaweed patterned cushions to the chairs overlooking the balcony to carry the colour over and replaced the multicoloured canvases with a local painting of Padstow.