Have you ever wondered actually how to create beautiful interiors like the ones they have on magazine pages?
What if you could create that high quality finish within your own home or rural business? Well Brook Cottage Shepherds Huts have done that and below I have the interview that gives you all the answers as to how they've done it.
So as promised, The Cottage Notebook has a lot to offer you this month. Interior design secrets and of course some ideas for your own rural business, whether you have a business already or you are thinking about starting one when your dream of rural life comes to fruition.
With the warmer weather comes the inclination to throw the doors and windows open, share your home and your space outside. Harvesting fruit and vegetables from the garden and taking them into a stylish yet functioning kitchen, and serving a home grown meal either inside a beautifully set up dining room or outdoor space. This time of year sees many of us having guests over, so maybe you want to re-design your guest bedroom or perhaps you have a rural retreat like Mark and Jonathan at Brook Cottage Shepherds Huts and your business is to offer the perfect summer holiday. So grab a brew, maybe a biscuit or two and settle down for some design secrets from an award winning duo and tips that will work in your home as well.
Our chat went on for over 2 hours talking about all things design so I've trimmed down the interview to give you the top tips and highlights of our long conversation with this very creative couple who have also gifted a 10% discount code for anyone wanting to book a stay with them.
Combining Jonathan's artistic flair, he is an artist after all, and Marks eye for design and business knowhow they make a powerful duo in the world of holiday accommodation in North Wales. Their boutique shepherds huts and fine detailing, without of course, any effort spared on the special touches for the guests has everyone leaving 5 star reviews and rightly so.
The sheer number of awards make it clear that the attention to detail in every aspect of their business makes their customers feel very special and each stay unique to them.
While a lot of purchases for the huts are new there are still some lovely up-cycled ideas that have saved them a few pennies during the creation of these spaces. The old leather belts fitted to the wall make a functional yet beautiful way to keep the chairs secured and tidy while the old brick moulds they found make quirky shelves for the kitchen. Other things like the old vintage school chairs are no longer cheap to find these days however their creative mix of items and the associated patina make the overall spaces very luxurious and very much in keeping with the overall designs they set out to create.
So what an ideal couple to help me pin down some of the basics for you to help create your ideal rural retreat inside and out whether thats for your own home or your business.
1, What was your overall concept for the shepherds huts and your business?
"The overall concept was driven by our customers, which any business should be thinking about from the start. Who do I want to connect to? So for us it was adults only and we knew that right from the word go we wanted to work at the boutique, luxury end of the market. So that determines the style and shape of the interiors".
2, Did you utilise anything like a mood board to collate your ideas?
Mark "Certainly for Elen (one of the shepherds huts) a mood board was used its very useful to collate down what starts off as a lot of ideas so that you can refine your choices before getting carried away".
Emma "Creating my own personal space it's very easy to throw some ideas together in my head because a lot of what I have to use within the interior is already in the room or certainly in the house. Beyond that I'm thinking about colours and fabrics that I might purchase. But for a business I'm guessing that where everything you need to buy is going to be new then the need to get the details and the design and concept nailed down is hugely important so that you don't waste money buying items you come to realise won't work within the space at a later date".
Mark "Yes exactly, because we have approached the interior design as a key element to the business we've been able to have everything fully costed and worked out before anything was purchased. The costing determined what we could actually do. Our backgrounds are both in fine art, having previously run an Art Gallery, owned and run a fine art picture framing business in London we are used to laying out designs before we commit resources to it".
Creating a mood board is easy and simple to do. Compiling your chosen colour schemes with ideas for bedding, curtains and interior details such as the kettle, toaster even down to the plates is a great way to see overall if your idea is going to fit together or if elements will clash.
3, How did you approach the lighting?
Lighting can change a whole room and so needs consideration much like any other interior aspect .
Mark "So for one hut we've used a textured light shade, using a nice bulb because it can be seen the shade throws textured light across the space. Alternatively using a coloured shade will add another tonal colour into the space. It is also a consideration on what bulb and what amount of light you have. A bright white bulb would be wrong as it would make the space feel cold".
I added to the conversation about lighting relating to my own choice of bulbs as my kitchen currently has bright white spot light bulbs and from outside the house looks wrong. The kitchen window from outside in the dark looks like it's lit up like a surgeons theatre yet the dining room has a soft warm glow which makes the house look inviting. So I've already decided that a warm light in the kitchen will work much better and won't impact how much light I have to work with. That is determined by the lights themselves, their position and number of them.
I also have a number of Tiffany style lights, one with a beautiful pink shade one with blue dotted about the house. They add that soft colour to the room and become a focal point themselves as well as lighting a desk or reading area. They create a different atmosphere to the room and change how the space feels in an evening when they are on compared to the daytime feel of the room. Then there is again the question of what bulb. For those lights with exposed bulbs there is now a huge range of stylistic bulbs and vintage style ones which can add to the overall design. So rather than settling on any light or style think about the shadows, patterns and colour each one of your choices will make and how each one will influence the mood for the room.
4, What little details within the designs have you focused on?
Mark "As part of the overall design we also focused on the details, like trim for example, that 90% of people wont notice but subconsciously has an overall effect. Those details are the icing on the cake and helps sharpen the whole design up".
"We've even had created a scent for each bathroom. Working out all the very fine detail can take an age however thats what a lot of people don't spend the time on but it really adds up. Because we approach the design process not just as an aesthetic but functionality and practical as well its adds volume to the overall impression people get. We did have one guy stay over who was a joiner and he admitted that he spent some time one evening going over all the joints and was impressed that the detail was so precise, that was a nice comment to have".
The attention to detail for the photo shoot shows the level of details they have gone to for creating the ideal lifestyle and aspirational photos for the website and marketing material. A touch of fern in a bowl, the napkins wrapped all adds to a certain feel for selling a holiday experience.
I wanted to talk about the bed as it's a big focal point. It takes up a large area and is where your guests will choose to relax on as well as get a restful 8 hours sleep so I asked Mark and Jonathan what choices were made for the bed in their spaces?
Mark "It was very much determined by the space and we designed storage into them as working with a small space the question is always 'Where do you put stuff' and so we had to start again by thinking who's staying and how will they use the space. The answers to those questions determined how we designed the beds. We created large storage spaces and drawers underneath so that there was a choice for people such as someone comes with a suitcase or camera tripod say. If you are coming for a photography weekend you have somewhere to store it. Jonathan "Cases on wheels can slide in, we actually measured a whole series of cases before we designed the beds".
What choices have you made regarding the bedding?
Mark "In respect of fabrics and colour that was determined by the interior, Elen is a good example I keep returning to, as we designed Elen around the World Hertitage Site Status at Llanberis so we took inspiration from the working quarry and mine. The colours and textures around that and so the colour choices were determined around that mood board as a starting point. However that could look industrial and hard so we used some industrial shading and softened it with warm light bulbs and a bedding choice that gives that warm plush enveloping feel like being wrapped in a teddy bear and we have Lucys cushion* in there. So that cushion adds another texture and is natural fitting within the area around the heritage site, and it's a nice detail and focal point on the bed".
*Lucys cushion was purchased at Patchwork Sheep, from a flock of 72 hand sheared individually named sheep she creates beautiful rugs, cushions and felted crafts in Pwllheli.
Your customers are going to get really intimate with the bed, enveloped into it and wrapped in the fabrics for the whole night what colours and fabric chocies did you make?
Jonathan "It was really important, as you said the bed is the biggest element and what we didn't want was the bed to dominate the space so when you go into one of the huts you're not conscious of it being the biggest element. So that's where we talked about colour and texture choices, it's part of the overall scheme so the bed isn't screaming at you its part of the overall colour and texture of the interior space" "Its important to purchase good quality fabric, the cheaper fabrics just don't last and can wear out very quickly so any money saved there initially is quickly lost when it needs to be replaced and its also about how the fabric feels on people skin which also relates to the choices of towels".
Mark and Jonathan also explained why they made the decision to put the bed in the middle of the floor space, which most people don't do in a standard hut layout. Mark "You'll find most have the bedroom at the back and we changed that. Now the bed is next to the bathroom door which means the bedroom feels like its an ensuite. It also means that as one guest heads to the bathroom in the morning one can head to the kitchen to put the kettle on. No one is trying to pass each other heading the same way and we also don't have the bathroom off the kitchen which fundamentally is something a lot of people don't like anyway."
This adds to the overall feel, improves how the small space works and also shows up the amount of thought that they have put into the spaces and working them out ergonomically*.
Wanting to touch back onto colours as they are absolutely key to getting an interior space right we talked more...
Choosing and combining colour can seem overwhelming or perhaps a big commitment for some people, what advice/tips can you give to encourage others to give it a go and have fun with a wide colour palette?
Me "So you haven't gone with any bedding or other wall colours in white which most people would feel was necessary to make small spaces feel big why is that?"
Mark "White isn't necessarily going to make the space feel big. A white badly laid out design will feel small and awkward. The closest to using white we have is in Angharad which is a warm white for a colour choice, but thats because the walls are dark in there. The dark greens are balanced with the curtains which are off white, a warm white. We don't use the pearly white blue, anything stark". Jonathan then comments "Going back to Mark talking about tonal values we start with a tonal value of white, so off white, not white and working with colours from the tonal range. But from there there are a huge range of tonal colours from warm whites to cool whites and so it's from within that tonal range you look for your other colours, not looking at primary colours to start with"
For me the below design shows how you can use darker colours in a smaller space, here they have used shapes to echo the mountains that can be seen from the windows and have used various fabrics to add to a rich interior as well as using the weathered paint on the chairs. The use of drift wood as a curtain pole adds to the feel of this hut which makes it very connected to the natural world and yet playful in the choices whilst still feeling very chic.
From within white you can have the blue white, stark and cold moving to whites with red tones with a slight blush to them. Brown tones added create a pale beige or the off whites with yellow undertones which in their most obvious look magnolia. Of course this tonal range is the same for all colours, blues, greens, pinks and so on.
It's this pairing of the right colours that can determine whether the design looks right and sits right with your eye.
Mark "Having an understanding of how primary colour works really helps".
Jonathan "Understanding the overall holistic approach to the space is key so that your eye isn't constantly drawn to one aspect only".
A simple method of course for mixing colours is grabbing a lot of colour swatches cutting them out and putting them together. Find the colour you'd like to work with and combine that with at least two other colours. There you will have the basis of your design. Work around those three colours for the whole scheme and you should find your design comes together really well.
The exterior of each hut is just as important. Mark and Jonathan have chosen to paint each hut a soft yet different shade of blue/green so they gently all blend together however each one is different. They are surrounded by large vertical planks of pale silvered wood each one individually cut with a delicate wave to the top to echo the mountains and hills beyond. This adds to the privacy for all the guests although each one has its own individual space. None are crammed in and attention was spent on making sure each one faces the lake and faces slightly away from each other. A real consideration that the guests notice and appreciate. This adds to the private quiet stay that everyone comes to enjoy.
We then briefly moved onto talk about the beautiful laid out living room where we were sat. Renovated and opened out, Mark and Jonathan explained their approach.
Mark "You take inspiration and the base colours from what you can't change, like you said (referring to my comments earlier) the floor and the stone fireplace surround. Its warm soft brown colours start to dictate the colours for the whole room. Here we chose off white with warm brown tones that enhances the colour in the stone and wooden floor".
They pick up the colour further in the couches and cushions. The whole room is soft and gentle on the eye because this is their gallery where they have art work on the walls and some sculpture on the window ledges and shelving. Some is their collection and some is artwork made by Jonathan. So the room must serve as both their living room and art gallery.
Mark then offered this great piece of advice "What I suggest is if you are planning on painting colours in a room paint a tester patch into the corner right across the joint, because the two walls will look like two completely different colours. Leave it in the corner and see how that changes from the morning to late evening and how artificial lighting changes the colour also".
Jonathan - "and stronger colour in moderation sometimes, like how you're dressed today. I think you're using colour in the way it should be used, an accent colour. The yellow isn't everywhere, it's a touch but it's also picking up your flesh tones really well, and the highlights in your hair".
It was lovely to be told I was dressed nicely as I don't often get a chance to get out of t-shirts and jeans!
From my approach to interiors I like to follow the same advice as Mark and Jonathan, pick that lovely tonal base which of course doesn't have to be off white, as with some of their huts the tonal base colour for the design is grey, or green. You pick a tonal hue that compliments the tonal base colour and you can throw that around the room, tiles, bedding, cushions and the couch, even the rug, and then you can add a contrast colour, something that is a juxtaposition. Maybe pick a blue for example. Mark and Jonathan have a huge painting that dominates one wall with flashes of blue in that could be picked out and those blue tones used around the room.
Of course you can also pick a colour that isn't in the room already to lift a scheme such as for my snug I have bright pink against a drop of greys and greens. Or my dining room that from the fittings is brass but I've chose a blue colour to accent which also is reflected in the large painting on the wall. I have a beautiful Tiffany style light to contrast with the golds and black details. The original wooden porch surrounding the front door is painted a deep midnight blue, a dark colour only carried off as the room is so large and painted a pale cream. So balance is key in any design.
Whatever the colour and style you like I always suggest that you use texture to add depth to the room as well. Using texture in the room in a variety of places can emphasise the colour choices.
Going back to Mark and Jonathans couch. Now imagine their room with a heavy woven couch in the same colour? It would change the room and how it feels again, simply through texture. What if you added throws or different cushions? What about a pop of bright colour or a naturally coloured felted sheep skin throw? That would instantly add a big statement to the room. There are many ways to add colour not just on the walls.
Marks overall advice is if you'd like to work with some colours get your standard deluxe colour charts and cut them up put them together, have some fun and play about with combinations.
I also wanted to cover with Mark and Jonathan just how fundamental the design process was for their business, which is reflected in how much time has been spent on these spaces. The design and style for each one was worked out from the start as opposed to a quick approach once the buildings were up. Their approach is beyond dressing a space to look nice but is rooted deeply from the start.
To the question Overall how do you want your guests to feel within these spaces? I've summarised the conversation about how Mark and Jonathan approach to welcoming their guests. It is as important to their stay as the interior is to them enjoying the whole experience.
After booking there is a series of automated emails to make sure that the guests feel connected to the business as well as an app that they can use on their phones to find all the local shops, petrol stations and other useful resources. I have had a look at this app and it really is ingenious and goes that extra step to fulfil every need of the guests.
In winter they request that the guest messages them when they are about 15 minutes away so that they can light the wood burner for them if that's what they would like them to do. The lights can be put on before they arrive and of course the lights also have a dimmer switch on so the light is soft and and can be set to a low comfortable setting. The client then doesn't have to start thinking about making a fire to get the hut warm before they make themselves a drink after what can be for some clients a long drive.
Mark always makes sure that the guests go in first so that he doesn't fill the space but also means it's their space straight away, then he talks them through the functionality of the hut. How windows open, how the table unfolds etc. Mark then goes to explain the gifts for the in the hut which as standard includes our goats milk soap and shampoo. I've worked closely with Mark and Jonathan to create the mini bars perfect for what they need to offer as a 3 night stay minimum. They share a brief introduction to our linked businesses and the fact that the soaps are all hand made which adds value to the customers stay. Mark also has little extras inside the fridge and kitchen space such as Welsh cakes plus some hand made jams. Again everything is sourced locally adding value to the clients stay, Something Mark was very keen to do from the start is offer his clients a real taste and experience of the local area they are visiting.
All of that goes to show from the feedback they get how much of an impact those little details have on the clients impression of the business. Jonathan on finishing the spaces off "The satisfaction of having dressed the hut, you can stand back and be really proud of how it looks and how welcoming you can make people feel".
Mark and Jonathan have approached the outside space in the same way, with the layout given huge consideration. The lake that was already there has been enlarged and with the little touches of lighting on feature rocks nearby a bridge now across the water with the up cycled boat as seating their touches of design are everywhere.
Mark made a point of saying that without having put the words on the bench inside the boat, guests wouldn't know it was safe to sit in and might just take it as a feature to be looked at. Whereas the words mean guests do enjoy walking around the lake and are seen taking a moment to sit and enjoy the scenery.
Creating focal points and useable spaces is key for them and their guests being able to enjoy the space they have.
So how does their business work for them. It's certainly a lot of work and even alongside the awards they are still getting the promotional side of the business takes up a lot of their time and more so in the current economic climate, They have however stuck to their original business model, 3 night stays and adults only. A decision to water down that business model would do more damage in the future, so for now they are like all of us heavily promoting their business and planning for 2024.
Mark and Jonathan have created a DISCOUNT CODE which can be redeemed against any booking for a 3 night stay booked before the 31st October 2023. Simply use NOTEBOOK10 to get 10% off your whole stay with them.
BOOK HERE
Feel free to share the publication with friends and family who might also love the discount code supplied.
So whether you are thinking of some redesign of your own spaces or maybe you've been able to get some tips from Mark and Jonathan above all have some fun, and be happy and confident with what you like and the choices you make. It's your interior and your home and business so enjoy the creative process.
I hope you've found some of our edited down chat useful, if you have please let us know and if you have any suggestions yourself pop a comment down. We'd also like to know if you have a holiday let accommodation and if you have any tips for anyone reading that you've found useful.
Next month I'm chatting with a lady who runs her own cut flower garden and uses them in her own floristry business. I'll also add to that lovely chat about plants and talk garden design and talk you through some of the techniques I used when I designed gardens as a business 10 years ago and how they can all be used and applied to anyones garden.
Emma
*ergonomically - Is about designing in a way that makes peoples working/living environment more comfortable and adds functionality.
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