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La Maison Renaissance

The Oxford Interior Design Company speaks fluent French with an English accent. The reinvented properties shown are principally from the south of France and in the region of Provence.

In all cases, the original architecture is conserved and restored and then added to and the interior modified to function efficiently in the 21st Century but always authentically. Swimming pools, spas, tennis courts and landscaped gardens are part of the portfolio with attendant olive orchards and fields of lavender included as a willing obligation.

Many different types of house exist in Provence, of which four are featured, varying from country houses ( mas, campagne) to village houses, to town houses (maison de maître, hôtel particulier).

The Oxford Interior Design Company sources available properties, mounts a suitable project design for tender and then deals with its subsequent realisation.

La Grange

The Oxford Interior Design Company speaks fluent French with an English accent. The reinvented properties shown are principally from the south of France and in the region of Provence.

In all cases, the original architecture is conserved and restored and then added to and the interior modified to function efficiently in the 21st Century but always authentically. Swimming pools, spas, tennis courts and landscaped gardens are part of the portfolio with attendant olive orchards and fields of lavender included as a willing obligation.

Many different types of house exist in Provence, of which four are featured, varying from country houses ( mas, campagne) to village houses, to town houses (maison de maître, hôtel particulier).

The Oxford Interior Design Company sources available properties, mounts a suitable project design for tender and then deals with its subsequent realisation.

Trompe L’Oeil

In French, “trompe l’oeil” means to deceive the eye. How well one “deceives the eye’ by imitating wood, marble or any other natural matter depends on the painter’s scope and ingenuity. The form and ‘the effects’ all come from nature. When the tree is cut the wood reveal its veins, shapes and forms within or when the stone is cut and polished then the pattern and the colour of the marble is revealed. The painter doesn’t copy nature but improves and flatters it like an artist doing a portrait. The scale of the portrait has no limits. Only the walls do.

In the context of refined interior décor, specialist paintwork is an essential accompaniment to one’s choice of fabrics and furnishings. It enables the decorator, the interior designer, to control nuance, colour and visual effect in an artistic way, as well as offering richness.

Many of these techniques in specialist paintwork were learnt at l’école de peinture supérieure de Van der Kelen-Logelain in Brussels in Belgium. The following images show studies for Pompeian fresco, imitation marble and panelled woodwork, columns and pilasters painted in the Chateau de Saran in Champagne for Moët et Chandon, table designs and painted French ceilings.

Mother’s Milk

Based on many years of experience and familiarity with the south of France, the Oxford Interior Design Company is able to advise bilingually in all aspects of design work relating to French buildings, authentic sites and places of historic or aesthetic interest, as well as sourcing props, antiques and original furnishings. We can propose our services in areas of set design, artistic advice/realisation and film location consultancy as well as acting in certain areas of film or television production.

Comments on the choice of locations used for Gerry Fox’s award winning film Mother’s Milk based on the book by Edward St.Aubyn include:

“Set against the gorgeous backdrop of Provence” (James Benefield, Eye for film)…”Mother’s Milk is simply undeniably gorgeous to look at, with each warm shot looking like a snap from the family holiday album” (Jennifer Tate, The View, London Review)…”the lush rural French locations give the film a real sense of atmosphere” (Mark Adams, Chief film critic, Screen Daily)

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Oxford Houseboat

Just two of the some forty Oxford College barges still remain in Oxford. This Edwardian example is the former Queen’s College Barge.

Originally used as a changing room/washroom for the college rowing crews, it was converted for use as a houseboat in the 1950s before being redesigned by its owner Richard Hamel Cooke. The black and white photographs show the first stages of the restoration work: the placing of a new custom built hull with its rising curved bow end copied identically in form from the original in order to receive the sculptured wooden eagle figurehead. The original red base colour or ‘assiette’ would have been gilded.

Elements of decoration have been inspired by the neighbouring wildlife sharing the river and water meadows opposite.

Le Mas

The Oxford Interior Design Company speaks fluent French with an English accent. The reinvented properties shown are principally from the south of France and in the region of Provence.

In all cases, the original architecture is conserved and restored and then added to and the interior modified to function efficiently in the 21st Century but always authentically. Swimming pools, spas, tennis courts and landscaped gardens are part of the portfolio with attendant olive orchards and fields of lavender included as a willing obligation.

Many different types of house exist in Provence, of which four are featured, varying from country houses ( mas, campagne) to village houses, to town houses (maison de maître, hôtel particulier).

The Oxford Interior Design Company sources available properties, mounts a suitable project design for tender and then deals with its subsequent realisation.

L’Hôtel Particulier

The Oxford Interior Design Company speaks fluent French with an English accent. The reinvented properties shown are principally from the south of France and in the region of Provence.

In all cases, the original architecture is conserved and restored and then added to and the interior modified to function efficiently in the 21st Century but always authentically. Swimming pools, spas, tennis courts and landscaped gardens are part of the portfolio with attendant olive orchards and fields of lavender included as a willing obligation.

Many different types of house exist in Provence, of which four are featured, varying from country houses ( mas, campagne) to village houses, to town houses (maison de maître, hôtel particulier).

The Oxford Interior Design Company sources available properties, mounts a suitable project design for tender and then deals with its subsequent realisation.