CASE STUDY

Mrs. Schutz’s home

CASE STUDY

Mrs. Schutz’s home

The property is a small detached bungalow located in Berglge, Germany on the outskirts of a small town. It has a living area of about 135 square meters surrounded by a plot size of about 900 square meters. Around the property is a lot of nature being directly adjacent to a forest. There are no direct neighbours and an old apple orchard borders the garden. The building itself is over 50 years old. Items specified for this project include Fleming Howland’s Hamilton Chesterfield sofa collection upholstered in Antiqued Green leather.

My husband and I have only been living in this bungalow for about 18 months (and our cat Lena). We previously had a large and very nice city apartment. We were never actively looking for another home, but by chance we became aware of this property. It quickly became clear that we would like to live up here in this secluded bungalow and realize ourselves creatively.

As a professional photographer, I am inevitably interested in creativity and decoration, but this is not a purpose in life. We now just want to feel comfortable, whether this corresponds to the modern style or not. Personally, I don't follow fashion trends, so I've always been a little against the tide when it comes to style.

Chair Legs Before Upholstering Stored Vertically

Chair Legs Before Upholstering Stacked Horizontally

“Personally, I don't follow fashion trends, so I've always been a little against the tide when it comes to style.”

A typical day starts with a coffee or tea at our panoramic window. We observe nature and the animals we see outside our window and let the day start slowly. After which we both go to work. After a strenuous day, we prefer to spend the evening in our "green salon" on our Chesterfield sofas and matching green Chesterfield chairs. For the perfect mood we turn on the dimmed side lamps, some background music and review the day with nice conversations. On weekends we like to relax with friends, drinking Guinness and whisky on our beautiful Chesterfield sofas. The atmosphere that we have created with the furnishings is very similar to a dignified pub or a cigar lounge (without real smoke ;)), so it is always an experience for visitors to spend an evening with us.

Hamilton leather Chesterfield chair in green

My husband always wanted to have a Chesterfield sofa although I was always a bit skeptical at the beginning... But after we found this really special bungalow, by pure chance, it was clear to us that this would become a very special place for us and that we would like to furnish it accordingly. My husband's wish to finally own Chesterfield furniture was finally fulfilled after many years, and I have also fallen in love with these wonderful unique pieces.

Our Love Of Nature

Since we deliberately wanted to avoid using off-the-shelf furniture, we first started with the focal points of the room. For a long time we didn't know what color the Chesterfield sofa should be... In the end, however, we decided to go green to complement our love of nature, and are absolutely satisfied with this decision! We then just wanted to let everything else fall into place, revolving around this beautiful piece.

This became the beginning of a long search for uniquely wonderful one-of-a-kind pieces...

We actually had no real plan and no goal of what the room should look like. For us, however, it was clear from the beginning that it could be a little darker, more of a private place to relax, in the direction of a whiskey room. So with this in mind we decided to purchase the Chesterfields in an antiqued green tone. As the Chesterfields have an iconic, almost regal charisma, it quickly became clear to us that we wanted to add other old pieces of furniture in dark brown wood tones. This became the beginning of a long search for uniquely wonderful one-of-a-kind pieces...

Our Love Of Nature

This became the beginning of a long search for uniquely wonderful one-of-a-kind pieces...

A Search For High Quality

A search for high-quality furniture in the English style proved difficult to find amongst the furniture stores and interior decorators within a radius of about 150km. So the search on the Internet continued. As a result, we ordered the leather samples from Fleming Howland and promptly received them. Successful glossy brochures, the beautiful designs on their website and the friendly and competent correspondence with their staff then prompted us to finally order the furniture. We didn't regret it.

A Search For High Quality

It took over 18 months for the room to look the way it does now but it is far from finished. Many details are still missing such as matching curtains, matching side tables, etc. But since we are on the lookout for individual pieces or unusual antique pieces of furniture, this process always takes a little longer. Especially with our particular taste, it is difficult to find anything of good quality in any local furniture store. It is not always easy to find suitable pieces that fit well into the overall theme. Some pieces had to be removed because they didn't fit the room as well as expected. Nevertheless, our room has already taken on a special shape after all these weeks and months. It was also clear to us from the beginning that we wanted high-quality and durable pieces of furniture, we would like to enjoy them for many years.

First there was the Chesterfield sofa, armchair and footstool, then we built everything up little by little and very slowly. Since we didn't want off-the-shelf furniture, we had some parts made by hand (dining room table, living room table, etc.). We slowly realized the direction where we wanted to go. As a consequence we regularly look out for old antique pieces of furniture in antique shops, which has brought in some really wonderful unique pieces, some of which are over 180 years old.

The Wallpaper

In fact, we couldn't decide on the wallpaper for a very long time. As we are two different people with two different tastes, it can take a while to reach a decision! Eventually we sourced the wallpaper from our regional interior designer, Herrndobler, who gave us wonderful advice. The design had to be special and match the style of the furniture. The process involved taking home a lot of different pattern samples as they had to match the Chesterfield furniture.

This is where most of our lives take place, where we prefer to spend our time relaxing. It is a space for talking, reading, watching TV (which happens quite rarely). We love to drink Guinness and whiskey with friends in a wonderfully unique atmosphere with good music, but it is also easy to endure some time alone here. It always feels a bit like being in an Irish pub.

The Bedroom

Since it is a special bungalow, we wanted to furnish our main rooms where we especially spend a lot of time. This also includes our bedroom, which we have also furnished in a unique ‘royal’ style. Again, we started with a focal point, the wonderfully tall box-spring bed. Here it was clear from the beginning that the room should be themed around the tone of blue, being my favourite colour. Everything else turned out quite relaxed and fell into place quite easily.

The Vestibule

My husband wanted a 1970s theme because in the vestibule, here too we let ourselves become directed by an iconic style, the Schönbuch Quadro furniture that we painstakingly gathered from antique dealers. The wallpaper is also an original 1970s design. We are very proud of these rooms, even though all three of them are far from finished. Our next project is in the planning phase for a currently unused ‘space age’ room. This will undoubtedly begin with the same mindset, choosing an iconic timeless piece and revolving the décor around it…I imagine this will also take a considerable amount of time but that’s exactly how we like it.