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In All Things Considered, design writer Emilio Pimentel-Reid pulls back the curtain on how top creatives actually live—not just how they design for others. The homes in this book aren’t about perfection or trends; they’re about personality, improvisation, and joyfully lived-in spaces. No one embodies that ethos more than interior designer Holly Howe.
Howe, co-creative director of the British brand Howe London, lives with her husband, two young sons, and their Maltipoo, Bear, in a “wonderfully wonky” Victorian end-of-terrace in Dartmouth Park, a leafy London enclave she calls a “countryside bubble in the heart of the city.” Her interiors are rich with story: Swedish striped cushions, a handwoven Flossa wall carpet from her father, and walls adorned with prints from her family’s textile line, 36 Bourne Street. But what’s most notable is what’s missing: moodboards, matchy-matchy schemes, and any sense that the home is “done.”
On the final page of her chapter, Holly shares her approach to cultivating an undone home—one that’s shaped by emotion, layered over time, and never quite finished. In her own words:
Juxtaposition
It’s helpful to have a common thread, no matter how tenuous. We live in such a green area of London, that the colour and nature became a web that spun through the house, from the green walls and pictures in the study to the waney edged oak kitchen worktop and the kids’ many treasured collections of sticks and stones.
Balance
Symmetry is best avoided, it’s a very simplistic approach to achieving balance, which—as nature teaches us—is far more complicated than it looks.
Surprise
Growing up, I don’t think we ever had a home that was really ‘finished.’ My home now is the closest I’ve come to that; the building work is complete (thank goodness), but the idea of being finished feels impossibly stiff, claustrophobic even. With two little boys, a 650-sq.-m (7,000-sq.-ft) warehouse full of ever-changing pieces and an inherited addiction to antiques markets, our life and home will never stop evolving.
Color
Gaining space when we moved felt very liberating. Each room could have its own identity and its own color, so I could have much more fun! I didn’t really think in terms of color palette, my choices were more instinctive, but reading them all together now there is an optimism and light-heartedness that unite the colors.
Pattern
Things don’t have to match, but color does unite elements. Pattern is very good for a lifestyle that involves children and dogs. You can have fun with it, and its main intention can be practicality. I find it much easier to combine and overlay vintage patterns and textiles or new patterns that are woven and developed in the same way as the antique references. This is mainly because the quality of color and base cloth/material is just so much better than most modern textiles, so you get wonderful, varied depth of color and pattern that naturally wear better over time too.
Texture
When you look at fabrics and make decisions in the space, it leads to better outcomes. I had already lived in my bedroom when I chose the curtains, so I was aware of the light. They are not blackout curtains, and you get a mottled effect from the linen lined with stripes.
Mood
Happy! Achieved by choosing things not for ‘a look’ but that I (and we as a family) love and enjoy.
Limitations & Possibilities
My choices were limited in some ways by having two very small children. Good-quality gloss-painted surfaces come into their own and well-made furniture can withstand a few years of little climbers, but certainly I had to think ‘robust, durable, don’t show stains.’ Seeing the amazing antiques that come through Howe, I have learned a thing or two about what materials can endure and how they wear.
All Things Considered
I get a lot of joy from seeing how relaxed and happy people feel in the house. There is so much variation and so much to see. It just works very well, and we use it fully. It is the way we want it, and the spaces will evolve as the family changes. We have created a context for our family to live in over the years.
Excerpted from All Things Considered by Emilio Pimentel-Reid. Published by Quadrille.
