We recently had a customer come into our showroom who was renovating and drew on the White Company for inspiration. In doing so they inspired us; if we were commissioned by 'The White Company' (we can only dream!) to design them a fireplace, what would we recommend?
Understanding Our Customer
We began our journey on their website to get a better understanding of our design brief. The White Company's homeware has a clean look, with an emphasis on neutral colours, including of course: white. The natural textures they favour include linen, wicker/seagrass, limewashed oak and limestone. Most of their room sets and furniture have a transitional interior design style, also drawing on more rural influences with coastal references. The brand has a warm, elevated feel to it; think chic countryside.
Moodboard
Is there anything quite like a mood board to get creative juices flowing? If there is, we don't want to know. Compiling our moodboard was half the fun of this project! We focused on neutual tones and included natural materials, specifically honing in on limestone as it features a lot in The White Company's room-sets and photoshoots.
Slotting Together Our Puzzle Pieces
Now that we had a base guideline for our fireplace, it was time to merge style with reality and begin picking out pieces that we would use to bring our creation to life. We wanted our fireplace to be in-keeping with their brand imagery but also practical. That means NO draughty open fires with huge fire-baskets in them. They look great, but in reality draw really badly (smokey homes are certainly not on-trend) and consume a lot of natural fuel; we want something that could work in your home, as well as in a magazine. An ECO friendly alternative whilst sticking with that real flame experience would be a wood-burner.
We opted for the Huntingdon 30 stove from Stovax (with a clear door for a less gothic look). The County 5 Wide from Stovax came in a close second thanks to its cottage inspired design, however the Huntingdon's unique, traditional style felt like the right pick and edged it into first choice.
Our mantel was always going to have to be Limestone. The White Company utilises this stone over and over again in their marketing photos. The mantel style was a little tricker as we didn't want anything with period influences such as Victorian or Georgian as we were aiming for a piece that was a little softer than the harsh lines of those eras; it didn't take long to pick out the Cottage from Capital as a perfect contender. It's aptly named and inspired by rustic French Farmhouse kitchen & living design.. Whilst it's shown in Corinthian stone by Capital, we decided on Aegean Limestone for a fresher white.
Our final finishing touches were the hearth and chamber; in the interest of keeping things clean and simple we picked a matching hearth also in Aegean Limestone with a thick, no-fuss, boxed-flush stye. There was so many routes to go down, for the chamber; wood-effect tiles, slate, limestone? However in the end we picked a chamber by Capital called 'Urban Dusk' which is a cool-toned brick chamber. We thought other options were a little too stylised for the look we wanted to achieve, and the brick bought things back to a rustic, cosy, 'lived-in' feel. We love this chamber as the tones aren't too warm or red, for a more muted, country look as opposed to industrial or purpose-built.
Our Design Brief Realised
Our job was almost done, the final stage was marrying all of our ideas together into one final fireplace, crossing our fingers and hoping it looked as good as we hoped it would! A few tweaks in photoshop and we had our finished The White Company Inspired Fireplace!:
Not to toot our own horn but if we did toot it, it would probably sound something along the lines of "Wow, remind us why The White Company hasn't contacted us for their next fireplace?" But you know... in a horn toot sounding way.
We're so pleased with our final look, all it needs is a few candles, vases and picture frames to sell the look., sourced from The White Company of course. We hope you agree that we've successfully achieved what we set out to do. And in case you needed any further convincing, we've delicately plonked our masterpiece into a photo from The White Company that we showed earlier, and it
looks rather at home in its brand new room!:
Well that was fun! If you've got your own design inspo for your home you'd like us to try let us know, or if you've got an idea for another of these 'Design Brief' pieces we'd love to hear from you.
Feeling inspired? Get a quote for this fireplace. Tweak it to your taste, or let us design something completely new with you!