My wallpaper and fabric at Healey Hall, Northumberland

By Charlotte Gaisford Blog 11th January 2019

I was very lucky to have met Amynta Warde-Aldam, she has an amazing eye and had a great house renovation project. Amynta and her husband Jamie had lived in Healey Hall for 25 years, Jamie had inherited the hall from his parents, it had been in his family for quite a few generations. Their two children had flown the nest and they were rattling around this lovely old Hall set in beautiful Northumberland countryside. They had already gone into partnership with a company called Cripps and had developed a large farm stead on the estate into an amazing wedding venue which has been so popular. Amynta had the idea of moving out of the hall and downsizing to another house on the estate and creating bridal accommodation in the main hall. Amynta and Jamie had bought a house in southern France so were spending more and more time there. Moving out of the hall was a huge project which involved removing 25 years of Amynta’s life and creating a bespoke and very original accommodation using all 10 bedrooms.

If you have read my last blog post I was talking about how I created Healey Monkey wallpaper. Amynta used a great deal of this wallpaper in the Hall and also in her own new home. Amynta and I created 3 colour ways of the wallpaper, the original colours, Amynta colour way and Jamie colour way. The wallpaper was used in the brides room, a hallway and one of the children’s room. The children’s room was the old night nursery where the original paper had been used all those years ago. This room needed to have another bathroom added so it had to be redecorated, this time with the new re-vamped Healey Monkey Amynta wallpaper. Amynta’s husband and brother used to sleep in this room when they were little boys, they still say they used to have nightmares because of the frightening faces the monkey’s had in the pattern. When I was re-working the wallpaper I redrew the faces to make them look much friendlier.

Pretty antique chair in front of Healey Monkey wallpaper in the night nursery

Healey Monkey added to the walls and ceiling of the night nursery

Cushions on the bed using Charlotte Gaisford fabrics re-coloured collection

Amynta had many rooms to decorate and she had many cushions made from Charlotte Gaisford fabrics, she mixed and matched these in most of the bedrooms which brings the whole scheme upstairs together. Amynta had a set colour palette and was using paints from The British Standard collection, this was a friend of hers and we needed to match the fabric colours with some of the paint colours. I launched a fabric collection which I wasn’t planning on doing because of all the new fabrics I created for the hall, it is called the Re-Coloured collection.

The Bride’s room was also decorated with Healey Monkey wallpaper, this time in the original colourway. This is a gorgeous large and sunny room with a very impressive bay window. The furniture in the room is very original and was Amynta’s late mother in laws bedroom furniture. This bedroom used to belong to Grace, Amynta’s daughter.

Side view of the big wooden bed and large striped curtains with pink pom poms.
Amynta’s signature style cottage top curtains.

The old nursery wing’s bedrooms and bathrooms have been transformed using Georgie Girl wallpaper, Amynta and I worked out bespoke colour ways for this wallpaper. The colours are quite strong but really add character to this old house. The Georgie Girl pattern seems to sit well in an old or modern environment. The mix of cushions appear on all the beds which gels it all together very well. Amynta has been clever with her choice of furniture and light fittings, she bought new beds but kept to a traditional style, she found quite a few old pieces of furniture and updated them by just painting them a plain colour to complement the scheme.
It has to be noted the Amynta organised all the colours schemes in all the bedrooms. A very clever designer herself she has done a great job. I only provided the fabric and the wallpaper!

Other rooms in the house included more wallpaper from Charlotte Gaisford plus a more cushions. Below is a selection of the other bedrooms in the house.

This bedroom has been decorated in Ottoman dream grey wallpaper

mini bathroom made from a linen cupboard, the wallpaper is Ottoman dream pink with Jeanne Monroe fabric for the blind

Georgie Girl grey wallpaper but with contrasting blue on the paintwork plus Georgie Girl pinky cushion to add a highlight of colour. Note the beautiful old panelled doors.

A great deal of the bedrooms still have their old basins, these were the height of convenience before the en-suite became fashionable.

This bedroom has David Skinner wallpaper below the dado rail, very dramatic. I love the shape of the mirror on the dressing table, this was originally brown furniture but looks very sophisticated painted cream.

Here is the same bedroom as above, I love the way Amynta adds accent colours to the room in the shape of the red chair, it is a small move but can make such a big difference to a scheme.

Another signature of Amynta’s is to paint all the floors in the Hall, there are no carpets just rugs as you can see here.

This bedroom shows none of my fabrics but I just love the colour scheme Amynta has used in the room. She bought some old Indian Kanthas and has made them into cushions for the bed.

Amynta has kept the old hunting scene border above the picture rail, she has given this room a hunting theme too!

The hunting room has two Georgie Girl straw cushions on the bed

One of the bathrooms made from a bedroom but it was originally a bathroom when the hall was built.

Great colours, great painted furniture and fabulous Chintz blind at the window.

The downstairs of the house is equally as impressive as the upstairs, the whole decoration scheme has been put together sympathetically and has an unusual twist which hasn’t ruined the old feel of the house. The house is breathing again and is looking forward to its future as bridal accommodation. Carry on scrolling to see more photos of downstairs.

Formal drawing room, look at the beautiful plaster work which appears all downstairs.

The dining room painted an amazing shade of green

I have to say I am so proud to have been part of this project and it was so good seeing so many of my fabrics and wallpaper in full action and being used in such an original and artistic way. If you would like more information on Healey Hall do visit their website, there are some amazing photographs of the house and cottages.