(gentle music)
- Hello, my name's Katharine Pooley,
I'm an interior designer, welcome to my home.
(gentle music)
So, this is the entrance hall.
I love the sweeping staircase
and the light in this space is just fantastic.
You'll see on the window at the very top here,
a beautiful bronze sculpture of some giraffes.
My husband was born in Johannesburg,
so we love to have some elements to remind us of his past.
So, I've lived in this house for 20 years.
It's quite an unusual story
because the main house used to be
on the center of the garden just out there
and it burnt down three times.
And finally, in 1977, they decided to build this house.
I lived in Asia for 18 years,
particularly in Hong Kong and Singapore,
and I love this old medicine cabinet
that I picked up on one of my journeys.
I also love dogs and you'll see in the corner here
this most amazing shaggy dog with a stick in it
from a lovely designer called Tanya.
And in the corner, one of my wonderful hobbies,
is collecting antique walking sticks,
particularly with dogs, I love dogs.
And now, I'd love to show you into my drawing room.
The terminology of a drawing room in a country house,
would really be where the leaders would go and draw.
There's a lot of light in this room.
You've got light from this side and also from this side.
And actually, the color in here is just fantastic.
I have two boys and my husband,
so I felt that this room should really have
a lot of blue in it.
What I tried to do
was to tone down the blue to make it a baby blue.
I've also included some dusky pinks.
Three things in here that are my favorites,
I love these paintings.
This is from an amazing artist that my husband and I bought
when we got engaged in Stellenbosch, actually, in Africa.
Her name is Kate Smith.
But it just represents the most beautiful part
of Africa that we enjoyed so much.
My favorite piece of furniture in this room,
is this beautiful turquoise secretaire actually,
that I bought from the Battersea Antique Show.
It's quite rare to find this incredible turquoise color.
This is where I do all my writing of my thank-you letters,
but I think it just compliments the room beautifully.
I'd like to point out this amazing piece of art
done by a very dear friend of mine, Nancy Guinness.
And what I love about this picture,
is it brings up all the blues and the pinks in this room,
and you can see there's that beautiful Asian influence.
I'd also like just to point out
another one of my favorite pieces of art in this room.
I love butterflies and this was designed
to emulate when all the butterflies
just fly off from a tree,
but I think it's gorgeous how it reflects the darker blues
and then easing out into lighter pale blues.
(gentle music)
So this is my master bedroom.
I just love the light from both sides of the room.
What I have done here is to put beautiful wallpaper
only on one side of the wall.
I didn't want to feel too enclosed,
but I thought that one wall would add a nice feature.
I also adore these cushions.
These are from Holland & Sherry,
but I think the attention to the detail here
is quite remarkable.
I'm also a bit of a magpie for trimmings.
I particularly love Samuel & Sons
and you'll see them over here,
on the trims of the curtains,
or the trims of these cushions too.
I thought it was very important
to introduce this amazing dog, his name is Piglet,
he died two years ago at the age of 21.
He was really, my very best friend.
I didn't want a Jack Russell,
but when I went into the pet shop to pick up a Labrador,
he had a really bad dose of pneumonia
and they we're gonna be putting him down.
So I decided I needed to take him and care for him.
And he was so loyal.
We always get asked,
"If the house is on fire,
what one piece would you take away with you?"
There's a lovely story behind this.
It was my first Katherine Pooley Limited client,
who's now a very, very dear friend.
She lives in Kuwait.
These were given to her by her sister,
but I fell in love with them years and years and years ago.
And every time I would go to Kuwait to see her,
I would point them out and finally one day,
I just found them in a package in my suitcase.
But what's so beautiful about it?
And you'll see those turquoise stones
and when I designed her house,
her whole house is decorated
with beautiful Afghan turquoise stones.
Okay, let's go to the dining room now.
(gentle music)
So this is my dining room.
There's an awful lot to tell you about in this room.
You'll see that there's a different color of blue
coming through,
but it's the same sort of feeling going out the house.
This is the only original feature in the property,
which is the original light and it goes back
to the early 18th century.
I'd like to point out here, this amazing piece of art,
which is by (indistinct) and in front of it
are these most amazing Burmese Buddhas
that I found when I was living in Asia
and I went to Burma with my father.
I'd really love to highlight these vases.
I bought them from Timothy Langston in Pimilco Road
and you'll see there's a different style of dog
on each of the legs and I just love that.
Look, I get quite bored of my own homes.
As being in the industry,
I'm seeing all these beautiful materials
throughout all my other projects,
so what I have done to try and to be very careful,
as you can see the back of the chairs, the dining chairs,
have also been reupholstered just to include another fabric.
And also on the curtains,
these are actually old curtains,
but I've added a beautiful Holland & Sherry trim.
We wanted to have a bar in this room.
This is the most beautiful Swedish cabinet
that I also bought from the Battersea Arts Fair
and it's got a beautiful lime-washed feel.
This is an amazing present that I received
from all my girlfriends that collaborated together.
And the last piece here, is this beautiful piece of art.
I think it looks like Richard Gere,
but the fact that he's drinking whiskey,
and this is my bar area, I thought it had a lovely ambiance.
(gentle music)
So this is my gorgeous kitchen.
I have to confess, I lived in this kitchen 20 years
without it being a beautiful kitchen.
And I've only just finished it about three weeks ago.
It was designed by Humphrey Munson with myself.
I'm gonna slowly go around the room
'cause there's a lot to take in here.
First of all, these amazing chickens up here,
I love chickens and we actually have 22 chickens
and ducks out the back here.
But these used to belong to the Duchess of Devonshire
from Chatsworth House
and I bid on them in an auction at Sotheby's,
but I love those and they're very, very old.
This is a beautiful oven by (indistinct).
It's an induction.
I'm very organized, I love cooking,
I've written my own cookbook.
Everything has a label and it either says,
"Kat's Kitchen," or "Pooley Family Kitchen."
One of my pet peeves with my husband
is for some reason he thinks it's okay
to put the dishcloth in the sink here
and then pour his cup of tea on it
and then he uses that cloth
to wipe the rest of the surfaces.
So what I did do, was to create a nice little drawer here,
where all these lovely sponges sit
and then they don't get so dirty.
Now over here, my boys love toast
and what I found is, I've actually integrated here.
So behind these doors,
you'll find my toaster and cups, kettle and coffee machine.
And what's rather lovely, is I've integrated this drawer,
especially for me, that says, "Toast."
Take the toast out the taster, put it on here, butter it,
peanut butter it, onto the table.
My other favorite part in his kitchen,
is this lovely cupboard made of oak,
but inside, it's a bit of a dream.
I have everything labeled and then down here
I have bread, treats, grains and spuds.
So everything is just perfectly organized.
So this is my boot room.
It's fairly new because it wasn't working for me before.
Before I go on and explain what I've done,
I want to introduce to the dogs
'cause they might not always behave themselves.
So this is Herbie and this is the lovely Tiggy.
So I was getting very frustrated
because we have so many coats and shoes
and I simply couldn't get them in.
So what I decided to do,
was to make this one cupboard all coats.
Can you see? How embarrassing is that to have so many coats?
And this I'm quite proud of.
So we all have freezers
and freezers aren't very attractive, are they?
So what we've done, is we've integrated it
and you lift this up and inside is the freezer.
I love that.
I'm now gonna take you to the garden.
(gentle music)
So this is my garden
and I'm absolutely obsessed with gardening.
It means so much to me.
In fact, that's how I have my downtime at the weekends.
I don't have green fingers, but I do try.
This is obviously just the back area
where we normally play tennis.
We have a vegetable garden.
Tomatoes or our herbs.
We also have 22 chickens and ducks over there.
So we eat all our natural eggs and they're free range.
It sounds easy, but gardening actually is a lot of work,
but it is thoroughly enjoyable.
Thank you for coming to view my home
and thank you so much for today.
(gentle music)