Arms and the woman
Refurbishing some of the rooms at the Feversham Arms came with unexpected challenges for Laura Stubbs. Sharon Dale reports.
Hotel rooms are up there with Pinterest and Instagram when it comes to finding inspiration for home interiors. Many visitors to Ham Yard in Soho go there to just marvel at Kit Kemp’s wizardry at combining colour, texture and pattern. The savvy Soho House group has cashed in on interest in its room design and now guests can buy some of what they see via Soho Home shops and at sohohome.com.
As a result of this shift, most good hotels have upped their game. Gone are the dull, identikit rooms and instead we now enjoy diversity, colour and interest as hotels employ interior designers to regularly revamp and update the look of their rooms.
For Laura Stubbs, pictured below, founder of Hessle-based Epitome Styling, this kind of commercial work is par for the course and she was looking forward to working with the renowned Feversham Arms in Helmsley when lockdown hit.
She had agreed to transform six of the guest suites at the hotel and spa and had just signed off the designs when the emergency measures were implemented. The deadline for the work to be completed was midJuly.
“I knew I had to carry on somehow as the hotel had a short window to get some structural work and the redesign of the rooms done,” says Laura.
“Luckily, I had taken lots of photographs and dimensions so I had those to work within until the Government allowed building workers and me back on site.”
The rooms were stripped back with only the fitted wardrobes remaining so she had everything from paint and wallpaper to furniture and soft furnishings to source.
“That was one of the hardest things to do as a lot of trade suppliers had shut down completely,” adds Laura.
“I would send emails and they just went unanswered so I resorted to tracking down the directors of the companies I wanted to deal with via LinkedIn and they were amazing.”
Inevitably, there were battles she couldn’t win and so without some of the wallpapers she needed, she redesigned two of the rooms.
With online shopping her only option, she made good use of it. Like many interior designers, she tapped into the great selection of homeware and accessories from La Redoute, bought some art prints from Desenio and chose from the vast selections of wallpapers on sites including www.ilovewallpaper.co.uk.
“One of the biggest difficulties was that a lot of papers were out of stock because people were redecorating their homes during lockdown and the factories producing papers had closed temporarily,” says Laura, who upcycled some items in the bedrooms, such as bedside tables, pictures and some of the headboards.
“The bedside tables were solid and had a great shape so it made sense to include them,” adds Laura,