Jingle goes jungle
BBC Interior Design Masters star Siobhan Murphy does Christmas at her Art Deco home in Castleford. Sharon Dale reports. Pictures by Tony Johnson.
It’s been a whirlwind year for Siobhan Murphy, the fabulously flamboyant finalist in the BBC2 series Interior Design Master. Viewers of the show fell in love with her style, her sense of fun, brilliant ideas and her beautiful broad accent, better known to those in God’s own country as “proper Yorkshire”.
She made her TV debut in February and talent spotters were quick to get in touch with offers of work so now, what was her hobby has become her new career.
After 19 years with the NHS, she left her job as a digital communications manager and followed her heart back into design.
Born creative, she studied fashion at Leeds College of Art but says that as “a plus size girl” she could never find clothes she loved, so she indulged her passion for interiors because “then it didn’t matter at all whether I was size 8 or a size 18”.
Times have changed and quick-thinking Freemans has snapped her up as a fashion model while commissioning her to design a range of cushions, which are selling fast.
“I’m in talks with Freemans about designing a plus size clothing range and I am doing more homeware collections for them next year so I am really excited about that, especially as they are lovely to work with and it’s a Bradford-based company,” says Siobhan, who is also working on campaigns with Amazon and is a regular on Steph’s Packed Lunch on Channel 4, offering home styling advice.
In between all this, she has continued to work on Chatelaine, her remarkable 1930s home in Castleford, which is full of original Art Deco features.
She and her husband, Nick, bought it just over two years ago when the colour scheme was neutral.
Now it’s anything but and the eyepoppingly bold interiors show off Siobhan’s skill in mixing pattern and colour while capturing the spirit of the Jazz Age. The Yorkshire Post magazine featured the house earlier this year but we returned to see how it has evolved and how Siobhan does Christmas. The answer, of course, is “with great pzazz”.
A taste of what’s to come inside is the garland that adorns the first-floor balcony at the front of the house. It’s a bling-tastic work of art made for Siobhan by her neighbour, Melanie, who runs the florist shop, Leafy Couture, next door.
“She knows me well and that garland is very me,” laughs Siobhan, whose black and white striped entrance hall inspired by a house in Miami now features a festive display with gold highlights. It’s a subtle lead-up to the dazzling explosion in the first reception room where rich colour and pattern now play second fiddle to the wonderfully “razzle dazzle ’em” Christmas tree.
The walls and the doors are papered with bespoke paper from Avalana designs and the woodwork is all gold leafed.
“There are seven doors leading off this room and your eyes used to go straight to them. Now they blend in,” says Siobhan.
The show-stopping orange feather pendant light was an investment buy
and was handmade by Cold Harbour Lights, the palm leaf standard lamp is from Rockett St George and the vintage circular seat was bought from a fellow contestant on Interior Design Masters.
The tree is an 8ft tall, pre-lit faux fir from Amazon, which Siobhan recommends: “I’d never go back to separate fairy lights now. It used to take me ages to unravel them. This way you can just plug the tree in and start decorating.”
Her trees are always themed and this one is “tropical” to match the room. First in was the tinsel, which she pushed to the back of the branches, then the feather boas from Castleford Market.
She loves making things and sprayed the monstera leaves and tiny bird cages in gold while adding faux tropical birds in yellow, turquoise and pink, all from Amazon UK.
“You don’t have to spend a fortune and you can re-use what you have by spray painting baubles to match whatever theme you have each year. You can also spray leaves and twigs from the garden,” says Siobhan, who added some fashionable pampas grass to her tree for texture and to soften the look.
She made the wreath on the mantelpiece at a wreath-making workshop. “I go to one every year because they are so much fun and it’s a festive thing to do,” she says.
In the sumptuous sitting room, there’s a striking festive vignette on her huge Art Deco sidebar, which she found on eBay.
The mantelpiece has also been treated to an OTT garland and pink resin trees from the Range, while the vintage, glasstopped coffee table is now home to a herd of reindeer from Flying Tiger.
The tree in this room has a cosmetics theme thanks to Home Bargains where Siobhan found lipstick and nail varnish tree decorations. She also invested in some handmade “Chanel-inspired decorations by Etsy seller Capricious Things.
“It proves that you don’t have to spend a fortune,” adds Siobhan, who has a friends and family packed Christmas ahead.
“It starts on December 23 when I get together with friends and their children and we do Santa sacks for the kids. We all bring food for a potluck buffet and the children go wild,” she says.
Christmas Eve is lunch at Harvey Nichols with her mum and Christmas Day and Boxing Day will be spent with family.
“Because of Covid, It was me, Nick, my mum and the cat last year so we are going to make the most of it this year,” says Siobhan who takes the decorations down by January 1, ready for a new look in the new year.
■ Find Siobhan on Instagram @ interiorcurve. Her cushions collection is at www.freemans.com.