To the Manor Born!
Peonies, butterflies, and a delirious quest for an English country couch
All I want before I’m 70 is a Sophie Conran sofa.
I made this somewhat lofty announcement while chatting to a friend who said she’d met an inspiring 60 year old who was well on her way towards her goal of visiting 20 countries before she turned 70. While I totally relate to her travel lust, in our current state of chaotic home reno, I’m all for pure escapism. And Sophie’s couch delivers.
My fabric of choice? The English designer cum house and garden icon’s Peony Summer Sky of course - ‘Tradition with a twist of joy and a very large dollop of comfort …’ says the blurb. Not hard to understand the appeal.
It was indeed love at first sight. Instantly, I was transported to an English country garden of bosomy-peonies spilling from the cutting garden of a vast estate brimming with spring blooms. Think tree-lined oak avenues and veggie patches surrounded by a rustic picket fence and a glass greenhouse for rambling roses and seasonal cuttings.
A vision of loveliness, the sublime sofas offered overstuffed European duck feather-filled cushions and a cotton linen blend slipcover perfect for lounging hounds and Pims quaffing friends. I’d imagine comfort quite similar to sitting on a cloud if you could. An indulgent ramble, I know, but perhaps it explains my covetous longing to own one.
And shortly, I will have just the spot for this creation of comfort and great beauty. It shall replace my prized marketplace find, a linen Pottery Barn couch which I’m selling for a song. Collection on Saturday.
So smitten was I with the sofa of my dreams, which, may I add, Sophie has magnificently marketed with all her charming cheeriness from Salthrop, her opulent country manor, that in a moment of delusion, I enquired whether they shipped to Australia. And lo and behold they did. Even better, replied the sales rep, as of this month, they were manufacturing in Aus! Oh the joy!! I could currently own one for an absolute steal of ￡7,895 - a tidy $AUD15,105 - roughly a quarter of the price of a new kitchen.
Momentarily winded, I recovered with starry eyed aplomb. What if I offered my home as a sort of show room for prospective buyers to ‘view before they ordered’ scenario. Right here in sunny Queensland.“So you’re happy with a stream of interior designers and random public traipsing through your home at any time on any day?” a friend enquired when I revealed my ambitious plan.
“Well, yes, of course. Bring them on,” I replied. Perhaps I’d even bake a ‘flourless chocolate and hazelnut cake’ so loved at Salthrop estate. Lovelorn with visions of peony blooms and butterflies, I was smitten. What did I have to lose?
I wrote to the admirably communicative sales rep with my suggestion. I would house a sofa and in return, prospective clients with a similar Sophie sofa fixation would wander through and window shop, if you will. I would even allow them to enjoy its feathered comfort. Within reason, of course. The sales rep replied rather promptly, making me think she had chatted to the lovely Sophie from just across the hall. “Dahling, but does she have good taste? Tell her to send some photos of her home, sweetheart. ” I imagined the interchange.
I was all in. Realistically, however, my ownership of a floral, feathery plump sofa was withering by the minute. What was I thinking? In the midst of a ‘reno’, a kind euphemism for ‘demo’, this was a formidable quest indeed.
Easily fixed. With a little imagination, I would take little vignettes from around my 41-year-old home currently in the throes of an attempted character infusion. Walls were down. There was a gaping hole where the corner kitchen cupboards once resided and a few bold sample paint strokes of Porter’s Paints ‘Yacht Race’ courageously adorned the guest toilet wall. The downstairs loo had been removed and the taped up protruding toilet pipe strangely resembled the sad stump of a limb. And that was just for starters.
I should at least get points for ingenuity. Avoiding the obvious chaos, I photographed a little segment of the TV room with the newly paneled walls and sconces glowing in a most flattering light, with a decidedly English country manor portrait in ornate gold frame artfully positioned in the middle just above the soon to be sold couch. I strategically ignored the passageway tiled in original Eighties burnt orange flower tiles which may have been a hit in their day but now rendered even the most effervescent visitors totally mute.
Next, I photographed my living room, with another prized painting and a marketplace find, a rather lovely rattan coffee table adorned with op shop gleaned artifacts. I even included my fat cat lounging all country stylish on a $20 antique chair, craftily hiding the fact that we were blessed with three different floor types - blonde bamboo, cream wool carpeting and the previously mentioned burnt umber showstopper. Peeping through was a Danish antique writing desk bought from a dealer in country NSW who kept gushingly congratulating us with: “You’ve done very well!” thus forever cementing its much referred to name - eg. “it’s in the Danish writing desk you’ve done very well!”.
My creativity was boundless. I skillfully snapped the verandah, avoiding the large sludge green water tank looming behind a great gum and our speech bubble-shaped swimming pool surrounded by tired black ‘playpen’ pool fence and edged in caramel brick. I also avoided the mini swamp to the left of a giant leopard tree where our greywater pipe had sprung a leak and bogged my husband’s car which was kindly winched out by our carpenter who should have been installing new French doors instead. I also excluded our trusty trailer loaded with large bits of our house and my son’s old mattress.
I snuck in some surrounding greenery shots and a rather adorable pic of wallabies in the back field which I didn’t explain wasn’t our own. I also included one of those flattering half bedroom shots showcasing my newly sewn linen cushions using scraps left over from a designer friend’s interior design job. I could have included a fake shot of a fabled platypus our real estate agent insisted lived in our creek, but restrained myself. I only just resisted borrowing my friend’s infinitely instagrammable golden retriever called Millie. Instead, I added a shot taken one evening over Christmas with twinkling Target orbs hanging from the veranda and Bunnings warm white solar lights illuminating our old home to almost grand (ish) status. My collage of snaps created a delightful elusion of mink and manure. So this may not be an English manor, but surely Sophie would appreciate the potential, the charm, and my excellent good taste.
I sent them off with a naive flourish.
And here, may I suggest the term ‘ghosted’ aptly applies. Nothing. Not a word. Not even a “thank you for your interest but we feel your charming home doesn’t quite fit the Sophie brand”. A silence so deafening I couldn't even take offense.
While not offended (it was admittedly a long shot), I can’t help thinking this was a missed opportunity. It’s not that I have any delusions of grandeur, but let's just say I know people who know people. Just this week my flooring guy told me he once replaced all the brand new windows in a client's capacious house because he didn’t like the perfectly good ones that had just been installed. And in one of his moonlighting landscape jobs, his client owned an entire shopping centre and a housing estate just for members of his own family. And carpenter Jack has clients who own a jet. I made that up. But look, he knows people too.
And the interior designer whose scraps I pillaged? She currently has a client with no budget. Yes, I said no budget. I have two more friends whose rather posh clients, (Sydney-siders included), would probably love a Sophie sofa, but they’d want to try it out, in situ. Preferably in my TV room with warmly glowing sconces, beneath the grave oil portrait of an unknown relative. So, what I’m perhaps alluding to, Sophie’s rep, is to never, ever judge a book by its cover. Big mistake.
And by the way, my new fake timber flooring and Jack’s French doors are looking sensational. And did I mention a brand new toilet with soft closing seat and porcelain cistern is coming on Monday?
Now that’s posh.
© Lois Nicholls 2024
Lois was born in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. She migrated to Brisbane, Australia in 1997 with her husband and firstborn son. She is a former newspaper and magazine journalist, gardener, furniture fixer-upper, spontaneous entertainer, bargain hunter, wife and mother of three grown children. She loves animals, humans and if she had her way would be living on a country smallholding (romantic barn included) with a couple of chickens and two Golden Retrievers. Her first book, "Aussie, Actually" captures her heartfelt experiences as a South African migrant living in Australia. She is also the author of two children’s books, “What Dog is That?” and “How to Catch a Mozzie.” illustrated by her daughter, Lara Nicholls and published by Bee Kind Press.