“I regard Sir John Soane’s Museum as the domestic dream but can’t afford museum-quality pieces so I’ve made my own,” says artist and designer Bridie Hall of Pentreath & Hall. Her interiors are adorned with intaglio cases displaying scaled-down plaster reliefs of famous works and Grand Tour souvenirs, intaglio lamps, and more. Patrick O’Donnell, colour specialist and brand ambassador for Farrow & Ball, describes being aware of a gap on one of his walls, and using oil pastels “to do a version of a Vanessa Bell, one of those Modernist 1930s interior scenes.” Nicky Haslam has famously accessorised his London flat with plastic crows spray-painted white, so they resemble more valuable porcelain. And the late interior designer Diana Phipps, an exiled Czech aristocrat, created a tented ‘Czar’s carriage’ in her London sitting room with some MDF, a vintage altar rail, paint effects, and a staple gun. “I like my backdrop luxurious,” she wrote in her 1982 decorating tome, Affordable Splendour, copies of which can still be found on Ebay. “To achieve this has always been more costly that I could afford, so […] I have devised ways of getting the surroundings I want by camouflaging what I have or improvising what I need.”
In terms of fantasy interiors (for this is not really about necessity or traditional DIY, though there is some crossover) we’ve all got lists of things we’d love but don’t have the resources for. But while some are brilliant at devising means of achieving them anyway, for others of us it can seem an impossibility. Maybe we once tried to convert our curtains into Austrian blinds and the seams were wonky and had to be repeatedly unpicked before we gave up, or perhaps we were hopeless at handwork and art at school. Lack of space can seem a barrier, as can time, and the lapse since we last attempted any sort of creative endeavour. They’re valid concerns – but the popular consensus from those mentioned above (or, in the case of Diana Phipps, from the writings they have left us) is that they’re concerns we should put aside, because trying again could come with rich rewards.
Bridie grew up in New Zealand, “where there’s a saying that anyone can make anything out of a piece of 2 by 4 wood and a number 8 ply wire. Anything imported was insanely expensive, so you had to be really practical.” She recounts an adventure with faux coral, soon after moving to London in her early twenties: “I read an article on Nicky Haslam and he had a coral chandelier which he’d made from a pear tree branch painted red. I had a pear tree in the garden of the flat where I was living, so I did the same, and it was magical. I realised making was limitless,” she says, and quotes the artist Glenn Brown, “if it looks right, it is right.”
This attitude can take anybody a long way; it’s how we get from spray-painted crows, which are delightfully straightforward, to faux architectural details such as MDF fireplaces or door pediments, which are also undemanding. You just need a saw – or, even easier, you can take the pattern to the timber merchant and have it cut out for you. Momentum builds as you go, and the eye sees increasing possibilities. Patrick O’Donnell describes fashioning a rather smart frame for a collection of white intaglios from “a £20 circular Ikea tray” that he painted “a dead flat green.” A Czar’s carriage is next level up, but you just need to “charge ahead with confidence, enjoyment and a sharp pair of scissors for cutting corners,” advises Diana Phipps. For more, see Dennis Severs’ stage set-like house in Spitalfields, for which he created four-poster beds using component parts that included glue-soaked loo rolls, Polyfilla, polystyrene and market palettes.
A related path takes us to trompe l’oeil. This might be ‘japanning’, an imitation of East Asian lacquerware which was practiced extensively in the 18th and 19th centuries in Europe. Diana Phipps used to transform “any inexpensive metal object, such as a wastebasket, bread bin or box,” into something smart using a matt black signwriters’ paint or acrylic, which she’d then decorate with gold, silver or pewter Liquid Leaf. See also marble fireplaces fabricated from plywood and paint – Bridie has one – and other theoretically specialist paint effects, tips for which abound. Reassuringly, they all “look good loose,” says Bridie, “it makes them seem friendlier,” and, in terms of precedence, they date back hundreds of years. There is a wealth of castles, palazzos and churches across Europe that feature faux marble, malachite, and other stones, usually because the cost of the real thing would have been prohibitive – the only difference being that the aristocracy didn’t do it themselves. (Rather, the artists were a status symbol, and guests would be invited around to watch them at work.) More recently, Nicky Haslam “copied” his trompe l’oeil panelling in his London flat “from Christian Berard’s salon for Guerlain.” Which is helpful to know – also because some of us get stuck with starting to make anything due to a perceived lack of creative idea. “It’s fun, ripping people off,” says Nicky, encouraging us to do the same.
But there’s antecedence here too that entirely validates the concept, for copying old masters is still an important part of an art education and is a practice many artists continue well into their careers. The Francis Bacon exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery includes his versions of three Van Gogh paintings, and I own a rendition of Rubens’s Descent From the Cross painted by Charlie Schaffer, who won the NPG’s Portrait Award in 2019. Copying affords insight, enables the transfer of skills – and can also, and this might be surprising, aid in the development of individual style and expression, sometimes even during the exercise. In the meantime, it has the potential to provide pictures for empty walls – and for them to be variations on favourite works we could never own even if funds were limitless, because the Courtauld is not a commercial gallery. ‘In the style of’ can also deliver appealing dividends, as Patrick’s 1930s painting proves – and if you don’t think you can manage figurative, there’s always abstract. The only rule is that it is considered more polite to copy artists who are deceased than still alive.
Moving on, copying doesn’t only apply to painting: John Fowler developed some of his early curtain treatments from his study of the V&A’s fashion collection, demonstrating how ideas can transfer across mediums. Equally, inspiration can be quite disparate, and converge: Bridie is currently experimenting with sculpture, and lists, as her references, “a Van Cleef & Arpel gem-encrusted brooch, Bertel Thorvaldsen, and Giacometti’s works in plaster – I love their surfaces.”
Important to understand is that Instagram, which can be a source of ideas, can also inadvertently deter: reels of people whipping up elaborate curtains in an afternoon does little to boost the morale of those of us still stuck with wonky seams. “A lot of joy has been taken out of making things because people think they need to be finished to a strict time frame,” observes Bridie. “It’s about process, and it shouldn’t be hurried.” Patrick concurs, saying of painting “don’t dash at it, take a step back, do it slowly, and all will fall into place.” In the interim, whatever stage what your making is at, “it keeps you company,” says Bridie – urging us not to rush to clear it off the dining room table. Bridie also recommends starting small, for those of us who might still be finding the idea overwhelming: “scones count, pompoms count,” she says. To which we might add, with Christmas incoming, paper stars, embroidered tree decorations, and a charming advent calendar.
To summarise: it’s useful, it’s cost-saving, it opens up decorative prospects, and if you’ve got children of the right age, some projects can even be collaborative – which, when it works, is rewarding, and comes with a lasting record. Finally, there’s a lot of pleasurable satisfaction to be found: “it doesn’t get any better than spending time in your home making things that are going to make that home look lovelier,” says Bridie. Which is worth bearing in mind – particularly as the nights draw in.
