Do you live in an Arts and Crafts house?

[SarfE4sticated]

If so, how have you decorated? I am stalking an A&C house at the moment and plotting how I will decorate/furnish it. There seems a lot of furniture aimed at 'loft-living' 'mid-century' and Victorian style houses, but not much suitable for an Arts and Crafts house. I wouldn't want to turn it into a shrine to William Morris, but it would be nice to buy a few pieces of furniture that would fit in. Heals has a few pieces but nothing too exciting. Where can I find inspiration?
It's only a 3 bed house so nothing palatial.

I don't but found this quite interesting so googled. This was quite interesting - I'd look a bit more on there for ideas and then try to build up an idea of what furniture you'd want and look for it possibly vintage on eBay etc?

www.houzz.com/ideabooks/1622797/list/so-your-style-is-arts-and-crafts

We do. It has a staircase that was enough to give a surveyor palpitations! There's also a plate rail in the hall. We know it's original because most of the neighbours have the same staircase and plate rail. It's something that would be easy enough to add and maybe unlike DH, you could use it for something other than keys and torches (though fil's miners lamp looks at home on ours)

We're having a grown up sitting room/ study which we're going to make our not particularly faithful nod to the age of the house with lots of dark wood. DH found a dark ercol desk to put in one of the alcoves. I have a Laura Ashley garratt chestnut console that looks at home in there so we're getting some more items to match.

We do! There's lots of original dark oak and beautiful windows. Ours is a one-off built for a local business owner. We've mixed new, but classic stuff with charity and second hand shop buys. I've also got a few things on eBay. Brown furniture is out of fashion so you can get decent stuff at reasonable prices. I'm on the lookout for wallpaper for the hall, stairs and landing in a fairly neutral colour and would really like Morris fabric curtains for there.

Yy Wowfudge, can still find some good arts & crafts furniture in second hand/house clearance shops, eBay & auctions.

wowfudge on one of my late night googling sessions I found this wallpaper that I thought was lovely, is it any good for you? A snip at £59 a roll !

SueGeneris thanks for that link, really interesting! It looked a little Shakeresque to me too, which is handy, because there seems to be a lot of shaker stuff around too. I guess because these houses are quite rare (compared to the Victorian housing stock) there won't be so many examples in LivingEtc or Elle Decoration. Might nip down to the Geffrye Museum for some inspiration!

@SarfE4sticated - I really like it but we'd need around 20 rolls... I really want Morris & Co curtains and something with impact at lowish cost for the walls!

The V&A has some great arts and crafts stuff too.

Our cottage was built at the end of the A&C era, it has been modernised by the previous owners and some of the features lost.☹️ But the modernisation was very sympathetic with original doors refurbished, wood skirting boards and some features were handcrafted, such as fireplace surround and built in cupboards.
We’ve kept the decoration fairly plain and have tried to use modern design ‘in keeping’. I found that John Lewis has some wallpapers that reflect the Arts and Craft ‘back to nature’ ethos. We used the Cow Parsley design in duck egg blue in our dining room.
We also found that our Ercol dining set fitted in well, I think it’s due to the all solid wood, hand crafted nature of Ercol furniture.

I really like Ercol furniture JT05 so that's lucky.

Thanks everyone!

@SarfE4sticated don’t nip to the Geffrye Museum because it’s just closed for a 2 year refurb!

I think that it's lovely to use contemporary equivalents alongside "real". So I love St Judes fabrics and papers.

I've just been past i on the train and thought about getting off. Very pleased I didn't now. Thanks @Thatsalritehun

Thanks @IreneDunne I like their stuff too. Good tip!

If you can find any Robert Thompson or “Mouseman” furniture that would suit very well. Large pieces have a carved mouse on them.

My friend had an Arts and Crafts house and made it a shrine to William Morris. It was dark and dull! The children couldn’t wait to leave home! Their bedrooms were drab and dreary. So, don’t take it to extremes. One or two well chosen pieces and a few Morris/Sanderson soft furnishings are fine. Total immersion - no! You could visit Kelmscott if you are near enough for a day out.

oooh Bubbles that's a brilliant recommendation. I love the honey coloured oak, and that is what I would go for rather than really dark wood. So I could go for white walls, wooden floor, honey oak furniture and muted colour St Judes fabric and not be wildly at odds with the style of the house. That would suit me just fine. I have realised that William Morris' house is not that far from us, so might head down there for a look next week. Thanks everyone.

I agree about not making A&C houses a shrine to William Morris. His designs were very popular in 1970/80s interiors and this thread has me reminiscing about the fabrics. We had Honysuckle’ wall paper, Chrysanthemum fabric on our sofas, Golden Lily and Strwaberry Theif curtains. Not all in the same room!!
Robert Thompson furniture is highly sought after and therefore very expensive, but there are items such as breadboards which are within reach.
If you are near Broadway take a visit to the Gordon Russel museum, behind the Llygon Arms Hotel. He was a 20 Century furniture designer who was highly influences by William Morris and worked a lot in golden oak.

Oops, my ‘L’s’ seem to have gone walkabouts! It’s Lygon Arms and Gordon Russell.

If you’re in the south east visit the National trust Red house or Standen house both of which are original arts and craft decorated houses to get ideas and inspiration

Likewise with ‘e’ and ‘a’!!! Honeysuckle and Strawberry. I’m blaming the heat.

I live it SE London so can get to the Red House quite easily. I have an idea of what I'm after now, so thanks everyone.
The fun will come when we need to do the kitchen - I assume that Shaker style oak units will be ok? Don't want to pay silly money.
Thanks everyone again, it's been really fun!

Shaker style oak units are spot on. Most manufacturers have a version.
There are also some lovely tiles out there that have designs based on A&C.
There is a lovely book ‘The Arts and Craft Style’ by Barbara Mayer published by Chronicle Books with lots of pictures of interiors . I have found it very useful. It might be out of print, but a search of E Bay might turn it up.

Sorry the full title is ‘In The Arts and Craft Style’. I’m not having a very good day when posting.

How lovely! My great grandfather (WG Tarrant) built a lot of arts and craft houses in the Surrey in the early 20th century. I only found out about him recently - googled like mad and just wish he'd built one for me!

I read up on it a bit to get my head round what the movement was about.

It is quite possible to work modern furniture in alongside a period colour palette/William Morris designs. And agree with JT05 the key is probably to think about the same design aesthetic - simple, well-made, beautiful things designed for better living? (Sounds a bit poncy but mine came out of skips and junk shops).

Also if you search around, and have an open mind, there are loads of places to get Morris & Co seconds pretty cheaply - so fabric/wallpaper doesn't have to be prohibitive, although if you need massive quantities it's more challenging.

In The Arts and Craft Style is available on EBay from £3.99!
It’s a really good book with great pictures. I’ve referred to mine over the years.