Ep. 458: The English Country Aesthetic with Steven Rodel

23:46Caroline McNulty:No, it makes complete sense. I'm like, gosh, you know. That's what I feel like this podcast has been so wonderful about, is trying to teach people again that guttural feeling that is so like you said it's a feeling um and kind of holding their hand to try to be like how do you get that feeling how do we describe it so you can understand and you know you've done a great job but i totally i'm with you

24:10Steven Rodel:i think that you know but i mean isn't everything sorry um isn't everything in design and it's sort of and about collecting ultimately yeah if you if it really crystallize if you really sort of crystallize it it's just about what as a as a as a client as a collector as a person what is it that truly interests you so lots of people have sort of fixed ideas about things because actually they a lot of people don't have the confidence to say i like you know this color or they don't feel sort of confident in their choice and actually if you just have real sort of confidence in what you feel in your in your conviction it's like a gut reaction to something i mean i just instinctively know when i love something because i cannot i cannot think about anything else like i know when, I mean, just minutes before I came up here, a colleague that I'm working together with on something, she said, oh, by the way, the client's selected this wallpaper out of all the wallpapers.

25:23Steven Rodel:And I said, well, God, out of all the wallpapers? Why did you ever show her that one? It's the wrong, you know, it felt like a bedroom wallpaper and it felt incorrect. And there was a sort of misunderstanding, but I instinctively knew, even if the client had... selected it from a little digital board, I'd have to have a conversation with them to say, actually, it's a total misunderstanding here and what you thought is going to be right isn't right in the context of the Aval scheme, which is a challenging thing to... Yeah. Especially when they really like it. Of course. But I think that going to your point about the the layering of um of rooms is also just about legitimately layering and allowing them to evolve over time because ultimately what what is time it's like time is set by an installation date commercially but when it's your own home you're not you're you're not really you're not really you're constantly evolving time are you you're just sort of always finding new things you're moving things i know from my own example i've now learned to live with picture rails because i would constantly move pictures and there would be a whole swiss cheese in the wall um so in a roundabout way i guess i'm saying um that it legitimately evolves it legitimately layers layers come with confidence in in what you genuinely like because we all know what we genuinely like push comes to shove don't we i think i should hope so but yeah you know it's

27:15Liz McCarthy:it's just the matter of feeling confident like you said earlier about about making that decision and showing everyone that that's what you like for when they come over to your home right yeah um so how has your own renovation um shown what you like

27:38Steven Rodel:um yeah so i've just finished uh our flat in london my husband and i and he works in textiles so you know the two of us together um you know are there's a lot to agree on and we tend to have a rule. There's a lot to choose from. A lot to choose from. And we generally have a rule that if, you know, one doesn't like it, then we don't go for it. I think, again, to labour the point, but I feel very authentic in saying it, that it is truly representative of the things that we love. It's a very, very small flat in sort of east london and we've had to you know fit a lot in to a relatively small converted space um and i think we made small architectural changes like just moving a window 30 centimeters to the left sort of created a whole new sort of axis for the kitchen which then you know sort of impacted to the dining room and then by removing a small vestibule to a bathroom allowed a much bigger you know sort of um shower room inside so these really small tweaks uh made a much greater sense of sort of the space um but i guess i'm talking about that from a sort of layout perspective but your question was just remind me your question again oh sure just how did you find your own

29:10Liz McCarthy:personal style in your current renovation?

29:13Steven Rodel:I think that, again, we had lived in our flat for about three or four years. And interestingly, when people came afterwards, they said, well, I can see what you've done, but it doesn't actually feel fundamentally that different, which I actually was really pleased about because I don't feel like it. I think we've done the architectural changes we've changed the hard finishes we've done a new kitchen we've done a new bathroom we've redecorated throughout but ultimately the spirit of the house is still the same the paintings are still the same you know we've upholstered some other pieces of furniture we found new pieces of antique furniture actually if anything we've sort of we've slightly become more i don't want to say minimalist because that is really not who we are but we've become more edited actually um and we've really focused on the good pieces um rather than more of the the less good um but i think it perfectly embodies our interest in textiles um in both antique textiles and textiles that um you know i we we have at guy goodfellow as part of the collection but also textiles and philippes company that he works for so it's a sort of it's a it's a perfect harmony of the the antique and the new but nothing really looks too new in terms of the textiles I guess there's an underlying what I call sort of slightly dirty color to it all because I think that that is the the ochres and the deep greens and the sort of you know the deep reds like that is that's what sort of characterizes that that apartment and it really works um and I think that it works to show what interests us um and um yeah um I think

31:25Liz McCarthy:Did you find that editing process challenging? Or were there moments of tension within?

31:33Steven Rodel:well i think ultimately you're you're sort of governed by you know a relatively small space um but um and it is you know by no means as i say minimalist was totally the wrong word to use jam-packed full you know i mean of you know sort of even down to over all the doors for example there was a good sort of 60 17 centimeters between the tops of the architraves to the ceilings actually more in some cases and so we had these sort of cantilevered um you know book shelves built above all of the doors that you would then have runs of books in nearly every room because it was a way to not have too many bookcases it meant we could have more furniture and then you would just have all of these sort of books at sort of spring points above above the doors so it was a clever way of basically um you know creating storage but actually it's very beautiful and it's very it's it's very necessary in those rooms um but i think that i think naturally the editing process often comes because you you've sort of the time has come to sort of pass something on or to get rid of it or you see something differently or something else piques your interest i think that some things last forever and some things have a sort of expiration date depending on you know depending on the object like there are paintings that i know i will always have and i will give to somebody um you know one day but there are sort of other things that i fall in love with and sort of fall out of love with and then I you know sort of give them to

33:25Liz McCarthy:somebody else or I wanted to talk a little bit about English country home style um and I have a feeling that that means probably a little bit something different to everyone how would you define it um and what are some of the misconceptions you think that we have over here in America about that i feel like i feel like it's very much on trend right now but how to emulate the style to emulate both i think both interiors and gardens and you know i think everyone i think a lot of folks here are looking for that level of comfort um but what are some key parts of an english country home that would define it for you?

34:12Steven Rodel:It's less a formula and more a feeling. I think I said that before. The idea that it's accumulated and sort of never themed. The idea that it's sort of lived in and not too pristine. The idea that actually it's just legitimately evolved over time. um i think how does that differ from american homes i guess you you mentioned themed like i

34:45Liz McCarthy:just i don't want anything that i do that feels british to feel themed in my own home i think that that's probably a key where you know um how do how do we bring in sorry i'm flumbling now you know trying trying to bring in heritage and heritage and comfort but what are what are some additional themes that you see

35:20Steven Rodel:and we can we can skip this whole thing if no no no no because we have no i'm good on this i'm Good on this. Let me just see if I've got any, because I did make a couple of notes because I thought, my God, I'm never going to be able to get through this otherwise. In America, my sense is that you sort of take a project and it's like the whole project. Here, I think you sort of, sometimes you take it, I mean, more often than not, we do the whole project. But sometimes you sort of get these little splintered off rooms.

35:51Caroline McNulty:Yeah, like a little sprinkle. You'll get one little space.

35:54Steven Rodel:to help with i mean nobody in england ever really says that they sort of employ an interior designer they always say i've had help which you know is an interesting sort of um idea in its sense um whereas of course in america you know you it's like a it's a it's a um it's like a key performance indicator to you know sort of um your your status your wealth it's like a particular car or something you you put a great amount of integrity and respect in decorators yes i love that's true you really do you know you sort of you put them on a pedestal you know you give them the credit and the kudos that they require um i mean and it's not that i you know need to be sort of celebrated at all but i'm just saying that i think that's a different way and i think here um we just have a slightly more sort of less matched paired back approach to decorating i mean it doesn't feel so um so constructed or maybe the idea that we don't want it to feel constructed it's sort of deep it's like the perfectly imperfect whereas i if i think about sort of you know an american client of mine like everything has to be very very perfect you know she doesn't want any sort of imperfections in fact in their london um uh house sometimes she just can't get her head around that we've put in a fabric that feels like it turns the whole thing um on its head like it's what guy would call like a shot in the arm it's like she can't quite get her head around it and we tried it and she would rather it just felt a little bit more

37:49Steven Rodel:um harmonious with the rest of the theme where we like yeah things to feel like they've almost been dragged into the room yeah but scales slightly you have a lot of heritage the patterns like you're like it feels like again it might have just come in at a later stage yeah um

38:04Caroline McNulty:her great aunt gave it to her and it was from her estate in the south of yeah it's a very

38:11Liz McCarthy:great aunt mildred she's got she's got taste but there's but i think you you said the word eccentric and i think allowing for a piece of eccentricity is something that i think we're not as accustomed to um but i i love that idea of of allowing space for eccentricity yeah and i think that that also

38:35Steven Rodel:goes back to you know the advice or you know my my i say advice like recommendation my my thoughts on like freedom and self-expression and if you can only say to somebody to sort of feel freedom and self-expression and what they really really want if you can really tease that out yeah then there are eccentricities there um it's often people won't tell you what they want because they're scared of what you're going to say right those are the parts we're shy about and you think you

39:06Liz McCarthy:are as americans or as yeah i don't think i am personally you come to my house you'll you'll you'll know me in the first as as soon as you walk in the door but isn't that really what we

39:17Steven Rodel:want to do i mean yes that's what that is the end goal right you actually want to open the door feel relaxed feel invited into a conversation feel at home um and feel that you have an understanding about the person that lives there I mean that's what I want and I mean I guess that's that's the difference between this great sort of debate about design and you know when people and it's not the work that we do but i when people talk about wanting to live in sort of or emulate hotels for their i think we're kind of moving away from that now ultimately but um you know this idea that it's sort of homogenized it lacks identity you could be in london but you could be in doha or you could be in la like yeah actually it all looks the same right does that

40:17Caroline McNulty:sort of makes sense oh yeah you don't know they make it so you don't have anybody can stay you don't know who's staying there and yeah and when it comes to a home it's not what we expect we want

40:28Steven Rodel:to know many people do want that in a house just they wouldn't come to us for it oh no

40:35Caroline McNulty:you are wildly too fabulous i need to know what is your most hated american design like um something that every man yeah since you're like something through the ages there's gotta be something that you hate about american design oh i don't know

40:59Steven Rodel:give me a cue what should i be hating i've never really i sort of never really thought about that um that's good that means you are sort of offended yeah offended yeah

41:11Caroline McNulty:is there something that offends you how about the way we just in general yeah we strip every finish off every antique from europe and we're just dry finish like just letting them bleach them going on

41:24Steven Rodel:yeah yeah that's a shame because i found one you know i'm and i've sort of i again i guess over the years have worked with people again that have that sort of pristine polish um and i i once had a client that famously uh we were looking at a queen anne um a sort of games table or something and i went to the antique dealer in london and i the games here was perfect it was absolutely brilliant the style that the everything and um but it was pretty beaten and battered and um and you know at the time the client sort of said well you know it's great stephen but we'll have to refinish it so send it off to wherever and we'll refinish it and when I sort of went to look at it again I said to the dealer well look you know it's ultimately a bit disheveled looking and the client's saying we're gonna have to refinish it and he said oh darling just you know just make yourself a new one don't spoil it for others let somebody else have it and I sort of thought that was a really good way of sort of you know because the idea that you most people love the patina of time you know yeah the layers the damage the you know the whatever it is it sort of tells the story it's sort of it's the chronology of that that piece um and so to sort of start stripping it off does seem a little but first kind of especially for a games table like Just think, how many games have been played if it's really battered?

43:07Steven Rodel:Yeah, exactly. So we didn't actually buy it. And we found something sort of appropriately sort of more polished looking. And somebody would have enjoyed that games table. But to think that, you know, one might take 250 years off the top of it does seem a little distorted.

43:26Caroline McNulty:I mean, I think that might be it. that we're just like there's an over not everyone but of course this perfectionism to it all like you said it's got to be perfect it's i mean and that goes back to some of the first things we said again that the whole layered look is so hard for us because oh that's old that's been used that's you know which is such a sad way of thinking of things sometimes but i think that rooms also need

43:52Steven Rodel:humor you know they have they have and go back to the eccentricity if everything feels like it's too sort of you know too constructed then like where's the humor where's that little piece of ugly in the end um or the funny card or the nap gift that something's given you because it wouldn't mean anything to you but it means something to me right and again that that's those elements of personality that, you know, comes through and I think set rooms apart.

44:28Liz McCarthy:Yeah, I love that. So let's all just work to embrace the imperfect, be a little bit eccentric.

44:38Steven Rodel:Yeah. I love that.

44:40Liz McCarthy:I think that's perfect. Well, we do have a decorating dilemma, if you'd be so kind as to help our listener out.

44:51Steven Rodel:Mm-hmm.

44:56Liz McCarthy:Today's Decorating Dilemma comes from Sarah. I love your podcast, and I've listened to more episodes than I can count. Thanks, Sarah. My Decorating Dilemma involves an 1895 summer cottage on Martha's Vineyard.

45:11Caroline McNulty:For Stephen, so you know that's really old for American standards, just so we're clear. True.

45:19Liz McCarthy:We're giving our second floor a long-needed update. We have five tired bedrooms full of mixed secondhand furniture. The bedroom doors are off a long, narrow, dark center hallway that runs the full length of the house with no windows. I am excited to update the bedrooms with fresh looks, paint, wallpaper, rugs, and new furniture. My dilemma is, how do I treat the hallway? And is it important to tie the bedrooms to the hallway and to each other? My thought is to pick a fun wallpaper and runner for the hallway and then pull colors from the paper into decorating the bedrooms. I'm obsessed with all the wonderful wallpapers available now and could easily get carried away.

46:02Liz McCarthy:But I also thought about using some in the bedrooms if it's not overkill. there's a skylight in the hallway that provides some natural light i love color and wallpaper but wonder how far can i go should the bedrooms tied together somehow or should it have should they all have their own distinct personality uh thank you for your expert help from sarah s so she's included uh pictures of her house and a few of her living rooms so she can get so we can get the overall feel for um her cottage vibe that she's striving for so um gosh i think this is right

46:40Steven Rodel:up your alley well it's a very beautiful house and quite a dilemma i mean it's quite the project right i think that um so i think that the thing that really uh uh what was the point uh the the point about the uh the skylight so i think that from the image i can see um you know definitely using the skylight to flood light because i think that she said that on the corridor there is no natural light um i don't i can't quite work out where it is in the in the hallway it looks like it's above the staircase and I I don't know if you could almost create within the light you could almost drop drop like a lantern or something within it on like a sort of crossbar or something so that would give an interesting light at night and a sort of focal point I think that a joyful sort of wallpaper is would be you know and the runner can really transform it um but i don't think that the bedrooms need to match although i think they should relate so i think that in any project um i think a sort of conversation between rooms is really important um so the idea that nothing is too jarring nothing seems out of place to the next room um i mean i know that some people have like a you know they say oh well i want this type of room or like this particular like i think about a project that we're working on at the moment and you know ultimately it's a sort of it's a regency townhouse in london but the basement looks like it's something you know entirely contemporary or you know it's high deco in a way it's sort of different from it so i think it's fine in a sort of isolated places but i think here if this is sort of a guest wing of of um of bedrooms then a conversation the idea that they're sort of sisters rather than twins is a kind of good way of looking at it is there a thread that you can run through um from from the from the hallway um is there a sort of color that you can take through and relate into the bedrooms.

49:08Steven Rodel:It looks to be a rather narrow corridor and I wonder whether or not you can create a sense of sort of rhythm and balance with a very narrow console. It doesn't look like you could really put any chairs but is it a very narrow console with a mirror? Could you put some you know very discreet sort of quite shallow wall lights um would be would be i think a way to sort of generate interest and if it was a linear hallway if you could create sort of you know a console on one wall and then something on the other wall and it sort of moves through in that direction if that makes any sense at all yeah that does i think yeah i think you're right

49:59Liz McCarthy:like a mirror at the end of the hallway where she now has a like a painting yeah um might be a great way to bounce some of the light that's coming in from the skylight i think so and you know you could

50:11Steven Rodel:have a very sort of um shallow cantilever demi-loon table with a lamp maybe a vase um i think it's you know there's there's there a lot can be achieved there i'm sure um maybe some if you don't use the lantern over the skylight and you just let the light flood through then maybe creating a sort of series of smaller lanterns as you move through um i guess it depends with anything you know you you have something in your mind and in more cases than not um it evolves so it doesn't just evolves stylistically it like legitimately evolves and you think that it's just a lick of paint and a bit of wallpaper but again it's about getting the bones right if you're going to wallpaper here um and decorate then why not get an electrician to come in and run some extra you know runs for sconces for a picture light i mean a picture would look great at the end of the

51:12Caroline McNulty:hold a picture light with a yes yeah i think that's i think that's really great and i think

51:19Liz McCarthy:to your point too like really just going going really fun and making making that hallway a bit of a destination yeah and it's unclear on whether each one of those five bedrooms on this corridor are occupied full-time if they're for guests um i mean just yeah you could just have so much fun

51:43Steven Rodel:yeah i think that you know in a hallway like that you sort of want to create a sense of lingering so the idea that it doesn't become a thoroughfare to a final destination there's somewhere that you might linger that you might look at you could have a collection of pictures something to sort of pique your curiosity as you walk through i mean that just makes life much more interesting

52:08Caroline McNulty:i love that idea and what i do love about an upstairs hallway too is it it can uh i feel like be even more personal like you said with the pictures like this is if it is just your family staying up there why would you not you know to your point put the humorous things in the children's art or something special like random yeah um you know you're not a little bit more

52:33Steven Rodel:private it's a little bit more personal we just recently did a project um in the country and we sort of redid this sort of spiral staircase which sort of is on one of the back wings of the house and again it's it's leading to the children's bedrooms and it was a really good place to actually focus the family photography so we have this very beautiful staircase a spiral staircase and they have a lot of this work but it didn't seem appropriate to sort of put it anywhere else that wasn't in their bedrooms so we just had everything in black and white everything mounted in these beautiful frames and then as you walk through it sort of you know it sort of celebrates the family really it is personal but you wouldn't want it in your entrance hall it would seem that would seem too personal.

53:24Caroline McNulty:Right. Yeah, because the guy, yeah, when you have guests that you're not that close with and you're like, no, no, I didn't need you to see my...

53:31Liz McCarthy:Well, actually, in the house I grew up in, you walked in the door and you were in the kitchen and then there was a long, narrow hallway that took you to the dining room and to the living room. And that's actually where my mom did a gallery wall with all of our very kind of personal photos of like, you know, a funny like picture of kids laughing or, you know, family photos or things like that. And invariably, that's the one place that everyone would linger. Like when you had new people coming in, they really wanted to stop there and they got a sense of who we were as a family. And yeah, that's that's kind of what this makes me feel like.

54:13Liz McCarthy:It's that same long, narrow. So, but I love the idea of making it a destination space that, yeah.

54:22Caroline McNulty:How wonderful. I know. I think the wallpaper, some sconces, some pictures. This will be so fun to meander through on your way to the rooms. And I think it's about scale there.

54:32Steven Rodel:And it's sort of difficult to get. But, I mean, everything is about the scale. I mean, you get it wrong and you can feel underwhelmed. It can feel too twee. It can feel like a doll's house. I mean, scale is everything. in both pattern and furniture. So, you know, picking the right thing is key.

54:54Liz McCarthy:Okay, I want to touch on one more thing. She talked about the rooms pulling colors from the wallpaper or do they need to match? And what is your thought on that? Like really with, I mean, do each one of, does she have, you know, the pink room, the blue room, the green room? Like, how do you, what are your thoughts about kind of theming rooms or just having them be kind of neutral? No, I think theming rooms is lovely.

55:23Steven Rodel:I think that's a really, you know, if you have a desire to have a pink room, a red room, not a red room, a yellow room. But I mean, that's fine. But I think that you have to find something that connects them all. so if you look at you know if you look at the wallpaper if you find the sort of wallpaper that really makes your heart sing for this this corridor um then and you sort of laid out all the other sort of rooms opposite you know off of it then you need something to sort of unify it and maybe it's a color maybe it's a pattern um i yeah i think that you know i would lean into it rather than retreat.

56:09Steven Rodel:Because otherwise, I think if you sort of try to just make something that is inconspicuous, you won't linger.

56:19Liz McCarthy:Well, this is such great advice. Good luck, Sarah. Send us pictures when you get it all done. We'd love to see. Stephen, thank you so much. This has been absolutely wonderful to talk to you. Can you let all of our listeners know where they can find you and follow you?

56:34Steven Rodel:Thank you. Yeah. So the interior and architectural website is guygoodfellow.com and the Instagram is guygoodfellow and our fabrics and wallpapers is guygoodfellowcollection on Instagram and my handle is Stephen Rodell.

56:54Liz McCarthy:Thank you so much. Well, that's our show.

56:58Steven Rodel:Well, very nice to be a part of it. Thank you very much for inviting me.

57:02Caroline McNulty:And that's our show. You can find all of the show notes on our blog, howtodecorate.com slash podcast. To send in a decorating dilemma, email your questions to podcast at BallardDesigns.net so we can help you with your space. And of course, be sure to follow us on social media at Ballard Designs.

57:17Liz McCarthy:Don't forget to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts so you never miss an episode. And please leave us a review. We'd love to hear your feedback. Until next time, happy decorating!

57:29Taryn Schwartz:two teams one cup the primetime stage is set for the TGL presented by SoFi finals Los Angeles golf club versus Tigers Jupiter links keep up it's playoffs tune in Monday March 23rd 9 p.m eastern on ESPN2 and Tuesday March 24th 7 p.m eastern on ESPN and on the ESPN app