“Where, oh where, might this first gem in the ‘Places Where People Meet’ crown be?” I hear you cry. “Well,” I reply, “read on and you’ll soon find out…“

So (g)loverly!

Not so very long ago, I was invited to a work event at a new venue in the next village. I was a bit gobsmacked when I arrived here: Glove Factory Studios

Glove Factory Studios (image courtesy of http://www.glovefactorystudios.com)

No one could have been more startled than me to discover such metro-loveliness nestled amongst the higgledly piggledy cottages of rural Wiltshire.

So what makes it so (g)loverly?

Think the office version of the London translation of the New York ‘Loft,’ and you’re starting to get close. Yet, the Glove Factory Studios works because of its serene balance of being so screamingly up to date and ‘London’ (yeah, Baby, yeah), without being the least bit out of harmony with it’s grandfatherly surroundings.

Here’s the eye candy bit, are you ready?

Well for starters, there is the office furniture itself. Starting with these fab desks by Barnaby Gunning – now that’s what I call a desk (mmm nice and big.)

Barnaby Gunning Desk (image courtesy of http://www.barnabygunning.com)

and you get to sit at it in Joy. No serious, in ‘Joy‘ – a comfy, recyclable office chair by those fab people at Orangebox.

The Joy Chair (image courtesy of http://www.orangebox.com)

Yum ,yum, show me more, show me more …

Brown leather wall tiles!! *squeals with delight*

Brown leather tiles - detail

and periodically, a table. No, sorry, a periodic table, table…

Periodic Table - bespoke design by Ben Hamilton

and here it is altogether

The Glove Factory Studios - spiral staircase

What would I do differently?

Although I always think the world is  a better place with a splash of colour, I also think that that world only works when there is enough white, brown, wood, brick and stone to balance it out. In the Glove Factory Studios I find my balance, and I really don’t mind at all.

Here endeth the sermon….

Fiona Davies - Interior Designer - Flame Interiors

Fiona Davies

why some hotels give you a bad case of interiors envy, whilst others just leave you with a bad case of blah? Me too.

Courtesy of Bailbrook House, Bath

Venue: Bailbrook House Hotel, Bath, UK

Who: Me and members of a business breakfast group
Consumed: Please refer to cornucopia comment in post!

Last week …

the business breakfast club I often attend as a substitute, were meeting in a new venue for the very first time. It’d be nice to think that the new venue had bowled us over with an amazing interior. However, I bet if you asked any of the twenty or so people who attended, they were far more blown away by the cornucopia of breakfast options available, than they were by their surroundings.

So, preamble aside …

I guess I should give you the low down (or in this case the very, very low down) on what I thought of the interior design. Oh dear. I could stop there, but you’ve been polite enough to log on and read thus far, so I shall continue.

Courtesy of Bailbrook House

The outside of this building is beautiful (from what I could see in the dark as I arrived at 6:30am – I know!). Sadly, it stops being beautiful from the moment you enter the building. After that there is, I’m afraid dear reader, not much of a story to regale. The first thing that springs to mind is “Travel Lodge”. Actually, make that the only thing that springs to mind! Yes, yes, it was warm, “modern” and comfortable, and the breakfast was nice, but there was no interior eye candy to entice a resident, in my opinion, to want to make a repeat booking.

So what was so wrong with it? …

Red Walls

I do take my hat off to the bold use of red (those who know me, even a little, will know how I champion colour), but in this case it was overkill and made a small room feel smaller. I assume they picked they colour (or worse, were advised to pick the colour) to match the, er, interesting mustard coloured carpet. Ok, ok pattern on carpet is back big time, but this was just your corporate geometric pattern, trying it’s very best to look as if it had been “designed” by someone who cared (but really, who was it kidding?).  Should I mention that the carpet was pretty filthy? Hmm, probably best not…

Mmmmustard

The lighting on the ceiling was fine. Spots (of course), but they gave plenty of light, so no one tripped and spilled baked beans down their colleague’s suit! (Am I naughty to think that that would have been funnier, than the bad jokes the meeting’s leader subjected us to that morning?). But, I must admit to a belly-deep groan at the wall lights, which were, for want of a better word, “plonked” along the wall.

Wall Light

I mean, I can see that someone was perhaps trying to bring a Bath = “all things Roman” theme in to the room, but ask any good interior designer, and they’ll tell you that a theme isn’t sticking a random item in a room, crossing your fingers and hoping it‘ll work. Oh no no no no … I won’t write about the odd choice of floor lamp in the corner, in case I lose the will to finish this article, but you can see for yourselves – you don’t need an interior designer to tell you that it just doesn’t work!

Erm...

So, where are we up to? …

Un-inspirational? Tick. Good colour, gone wrong? Tick. A carpet, which could do with rekindling its relationship with the Rug Doctor? Tick.  Light fittings that made me sob with despair? Tick.  Well that only leaves the piece de resistance. What on earth were they thinking when they decided upon those window treatments? Why oh why didn’t they stop with the roman blinds? You can almost hear someone thinking “Now, what can I do with this little bit of leftover fabric? Hmmm.”

Too much going on

Having said all of that…

the mirror in the room was nice. They should have left it at that and not bothered with trying to add “art”. Maybe this poor room was the runt of the litter and got done last; I guess we’ll never know!

So there you have it …

No, I wasn’t blown away by the interior design in Bailbrook House, but I was blown away by the interior design at the Grand Connaught Rooms in London a few days later. Now this, ladies and gentlemen is how you do it…

Cambria Suite

Ground Floor, Grand Connaught Rooms

Detail: Screen

Beautiful Bar!

to start with the venue in which I sat with a friend, drinking tea (mmmm tea), talking about blogs (oddly enough) and how much I love designing any kind of place where people meet, and the moment when he uttered “Now here’s an idea…” – anyway, long story short  - I am now writing this post…!!

Venue: Caffe Dolce, The Podium, Bath, UK
Who: Me and Neil – we were having a post business breakfast 1-2-1 meeting
Consumed: Me a tea (what else?!), him a latte

They say first impressions count…

so, what was my first impression? Well,er, actually it was to make a mental note of how nice the cakes in the chiller cabinet looked! Second impression: “Oooo this is nice!“….Third impression: “Hmmm … or is it???”

It struck me at how easily we can be impressed – or at least at how easily I can be impressed, and I’m a designer! First the cakes, then the moderately modern/contemporary interior. Nothing particularly unpleasant, yet nothing fascinatingly different. Just your average case of blah being overshadowed by a cake-filled chiller cabinet.

Ok, so let’s start with the positive…

after all I like to consider myself a positive kind of person (just the right side of being annoyingly so). What was right with this particular ‘place where people meet‘ from a design perspective? Well apart from the cakes, and the fact that I bumped into my friend Matt tucked away reading a book (hi Matt!), the space was well laid out (no holding your stomach in to squeeze past too-close-together tables) and bright, and…and…and…oh, that seems to be about it.

So what was less great?

Well, for starters the decor was, well…fine – an unimaginative, a la ‘DIY’ mode, cream and chocolate brown (don’t get me wrong, I love these colours when done well) and the tables, chairs and lighting were, well not un-contemporary but just a bit predictable really.  There were two things that I really didn’t like though. The first was the supposedly ‘helpful’ magazine rack – a hideous sort of wooden box shelving unit, which looks likes the kind of thing they use to sort out mail in a block of flats. Not only was it really very ugly, but it was in a predominant place, with a gone-yellow, half-peeled off, taped on sign reading “Mind Your Head” (to which Neil pointed out that it meant we could not comfortably sit back on our predictable, brown faux leather sofa!). On top of it was, amongst other bits and pieces, a blue ceramic elephant (or was it a cow?) thing and a cuddly penguin dressed up to go skiing. Stuck behind the ski-penguin was an attempt at providing the venue with a piece of art (and when I say art I mean it in the loosest of terms!) Yes folks, this was the decor!!

The other thing that Neil, in particular, didn’t like was the projected wall clock.  He said he didn’t like it because it was an OHP and reminded him of school (er..ok). I did, at this point, stand up for the projected clock. There was after all, nothing actually wrong with it per se, except that it was positioned on the wrong wall, too high up for anyone to see it, and was the only ‘decoration’ on a relatively large expanse of wall.  It was at the point that we really started getting in to our impromptu design critique, and noticed the skirting on the bottom of the counter had fallen off, the brooms were left lying against the wall, and the take-away coffee up lids were on full display in a rather unattractive blue plastic basket, er, thing!

Ok, so what did my design head come up with for this one?

Honestly, not a lot, after all I wasn’t really concentrating – I didn’t know I’d be sat here writing this this afternoon for starters (had I known I’d have paid far more attention..oops!). But from what I do remember, I’d suggest some or all of the following…

• Firstly, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. The colour scheme is actually fine. I don’t remember the flooring but I do know it wasn’t a walnut effect vinyl or laminate, which would have grounded the great expanse of cream and evened out the balance of base colour.

• Secondly, it’s not rocket science, but I’d just give the place a jolly good scrub, fresh lick of paint and a good tidy up. Habitat is literally across the road – I’ll bet that they have a much nicer container to pop those coffee cup lids in for not too many pennies!

• Thirdly, it goes without saying that I’d lose the “art” and the “magazine rack”. In fact I would propose moving the projected clock on to the wall where the magazine rack is sat the moment, and make it slightly bigger (for effect) and lower down (so people can actually see it!!).

• And finally… I’d also look into making a feature wall by using a modern wallpaper, or even a digital wallpaper design (by the likes of the Print 2 Group) and bring in red as an accent colour, just to warm it all up a bit. I can’t really remember what the chairs and tables looked like, but I know they’d look fab tied in with a large red glass tea light holder, matched up with some red cushions on that brown faux leather furniture.

As for the magazine rack?

Well, in this day and age there are so many fab products out there - like this tube magazine rack from A Place For Everything (A Place For Everything), that there really is no excuse (sigh).

My name is Fiona Davies and I am an Interior Designer with a real passion for design. I run an Interior Design company called Flame Interiors (Flame Interiors) and work in both the residential and commercial sectors – creating a stir with my innovative & fun, out of the box, sometimes quirky but never distasteful, unique style! My ultimate and favourite challenge is working in places where people meet, be it a cafe or coffee house, hotel, pub, bar, gym or community centre, anywhere really!

Often when I am in  the type of place where people meet, I look up and see my husband laughing at me. He says, “You’re doing it, aren’t you?” This is in reference to the glazed, intense look that has, apparently, come over my face as I size up the joint, casting my design eye over the place, and delivering my very own judgement on whether the decor and design meet the Davies seal of approval. If I find the venue lacking, I can’t help myself !  Without a second thought I find myself already having started to re-design the place it in my head – my mind buzzing and firing on all cylinders as I mentally give the venue a make-over!

And that’s where this blog comes in. It really is a waste to keep all those thoughts locked away up there in my head. So, I thought I’d share them with you, and anyone else who cares to share my musings on the interior design of the places where people meet…

Happy Reading

Fiona Davies - Interior Designer - Flame Interiors

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