Elfreda Pownall

Homing instinct

Elfreda Pownall explores a variety of styles, ranging from the restrained elegance of 18th-century Sweden to the frank excesses of modern American kitsch

For Jasper Conran the country is about ‘the scent of ripe apples or freshly-baked bread’, about grand houses that ‘sleep among ancient trees’, Morris dancers, Morris Travellers, tasteful cottages and ‘daffodils dancing in the breeze’. In his book Country (Conran Octopus, £50) there are some lovely interiors, though the most striking are those of his own former house in Chiswick. Conran’s acknowledgement of Andrew Montgomery, whose outstandingly beautiful photographs of landscapes, people and rooms transcend cliché to make this book such a pleasure, is churlishly scant.

Lars Sjöberg’s Classic Swedish Interiors (Frances Lincoln, £30) is a record of the eight houses and one church he has preserved from demolition or decay by buying and restoring them himself. Here, in Ingallil Snitt’s beautiful photographs, are the grey panelled rooms, the muslin curtains, the charming country versions of French 18th-century furniture that is known in Britain as the ‘Gustavian’ style. From his first purchase in 1966, Sjöberg has worked with his own hands, scraping back to the original wallpaper, re-making old furniture and discovering and re-printing old fabrics. He is a one-man National Trust of Sweden, and this book is a fine testimony to his 44 years of devoted work.

From the self-sacrificing (Sjöberg uses an earth closet in the garden rather than compromise the integrity of his manor house) to the frankly excessive. The decoration of the bedrooms and playrooms of the children of the very rich sounds like a handbook for a 21st-century Marie-Antoinette, and there is one ostrich-feathered bed shown in Room for Children by Suzanna Salk (Rizzoli, £30) which would not look out of place at Versailles. But it is a book full of inspiring decorative ideas, in fashionably bright colours and bold patterns which could serve as a decoration guide for many a grown-up bedroom or sitting room.

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