The Colourful Past

Edward Bulmer is a leading interior designer, architectural historian, and founder of the paint company Natural Paint based in Great Britain. He is perhaps best known for breathing new life into houses with a sympathy that is rooted in a deep understanding of their past, a particular skill that few interior designers possess. He can see where details are missing and unravel a mishmash of periods accumulated over centuries in a historical house. In this, his first book, Bulmer compiles the best from thirty years of work in some of Britain s most famous and grandest homes, including Castle Howard, Broughton Hall, Althorp, Goodwood, Pitshill, and many others. It also includes his work for private clients, highlighting his own stunning home, a laboratory for his practice, in a Queen Anne manor house built in 1700, which Bulmer and his family have spent the last twenty years renovating into a comfortable, practical home perfect for a modern lifestyle. He operates his paint company out of an old granary on the property that he converted into a studio. Bulmer has also revived the farm and turned it into a working organic farm. Written by Bulmer and featuring seventeen houses, among other projects, Bulmer takes readers through his creative and working process in each project, describing in detail how he renovated, decorated, and preserved the home, the problems he encountered and the decisions he and his clients made to solve them, all while sharing tips and secrets that readers can take away for their own home. Tours of these well-lived-in houses, rich with history, are conveyed through the gorgeous photography of Paul Whitbread.