The Brief
The clients came to Anna Moss with a house that was almost too solid for its own good. Generous rooms, wonderful bones, a double-height oak-framed entrance hall, original beams in the sitting room, a flagstone kitchen but the interiors were ready to begin a new chapter.
They wanted the house to feel as though it had always been theirs. As though the rooms had been put together by a family that had been in residence for a generation.
That's the trick of working on an English country house, really. Too much restraint and the place reads like a showroom. Too much pattern and it becomes a fancy-dress rehearsal. The middle of those two, the place where a house feels both considered and collected, is where we aimed.
Room by room
The Kitchen
Everything else in the house radiates out from this room, so we started here. The bones were already good, a generous layout, a navy AGA anchoring the back wall, a pair of deep window sills full of plants, an original flagstone floor, but the kitchen was ready for an update.
Rather than strip it out, we worked with what was already there. The existing Shaker-style units were revived with a hand-painted finish in a soft oyster, a quiet move that changed the temperature of the room completely. A new worktop went in with a decorative edge, and we designed a bespoke joinery piece to house a contemporary American-style fridge-freezer; the kind of appliance that often jars in an older country kitchen, but here tucks neatly into the cabinetry around it, like it had been there for years.
The island is a blackened teal. Above the dresser, a set of repro nineteenth-century botanical prints.
The Main Sitting Room
Original beams, a fireplace with a cast-iron stove tucked in, a pair of armchairs we had made in a block printed linen. At the centre of the room sits a bespoke footstool we designed to anchor the whole scheme, upholstered in a striking ikat-stripe jacquard with a soft handle and feel that pulls people in to perch on it. Against one wall, a bobbin-style bookcase made specifically to hold the family's special photographs and the decorative pieces they'd collected over the years, the kind of joinery that quietly tells you who lives here. The room everyone ends up in.
The Snug
Tucked off the kitchen, a pale-green library with built-in bookshelves along the whole end wall. Curtains hand-printed in a smoky blue with rose, a Persian rug, and two comfortable leather armchairs to snuggle into by the fire. The house's evening room... papers, fires, the dog in front of the stove.
The Study
Every country house needs somewhere to work from. The study sits with a handsome pedestal desk angled into the window, making the most of the view with a brass library lamp on top, a cream slipcovered armchair tucked into the corner for reading.
Along the back wall, a run of built-in cupboards painted a deep sage, designed to hold files, paperwork, and the quiet clutter of family life. A working room, but a soft one.
The Master Suite
Sandy whites, a washed blue, an oversized scalloped mirror above the dresser. Double doors lead through to the en-suite and dressing area. The bed faces the window so you wake looking out across the gardens.
A bespoke headboard designed to sit neatly within the wonky ceiling lines which come with period properties, upholstered in a soft cotton linen. And a deep chair in the corner to unwind in at the end of the day.
The Guest Rooms
Each one its own mood, a mix of block-print cushions, striped bedspreads, patterned curtains and soft linen bedding, the occasional small antique. The brief was straightforward: no two should feel quite the same, and every guest should feel the house had been expecting them.
The Details
The small decisions are the ones that hold it all together. A ticking-stripe lamp. A gingham-edged oval mirror. A crackle-glaze vase on a painted dresser. A chair in a corner. Quiet decisions, but they're the ones that make it feel lived-in.
A house like this is never the work of one person. I'm grateful to the clients, for their patience and their trust, and to the craftspeople and makers who brought the project to life, from the joiners, to the upholsterers and everyone in between.
About The Designer
Anna Moss is a country house interior designer working across Oxfordshire, the Chilterns, and the surrounding counties, with a particular love for English country houses that want to feel lived-in rather than decorated. If you'd like to talk about a project , country house, town house, or something in between, please get in touch.
Credits: Photography: Lucy Butler-Walters
