Each year, our followers (you!) tell us what you like (and don’t like) in interiors by responding to our Instagram posts. Some houses are timeless classics, which stay perennially popular, while other images reflect the changing tastes and trends of the year. As 2024 draws to a close, we’ve gathered the seven most-liked new posts of the year, to delve a little further into what you like, and the lessons we can learn from these most desirable of spaces.
A Spitalfields house by Rachel Allen
Christopher Horwood
Our best-loved new image of the year is this splendid drawing room in a Spitalfields house by Rachel Allen. There are so many things to like about it – the characterful architecture (yes, it’s one of those beautiful Huguenot weavers’ houses), the unusual blue paint on the walls, but for us what really does it is that showstopping sofa. Made especially for the space in the style of a Howard sofa, it is upholstered in antique Anatolian textiles with the tufted reverse on the outside. The idea is an homage to Robert Kime, for whom Rachel used to work. ‘I hold my hands up that it’s a total rip off of something that Robert did, but it just worked so well,’ says Rachel. We always adore stripes, but this kind of textured, multicoloured design is much more sophisticated than a simple candy stripe, and adds wonderful depth and richness to the room. The graphic black and white stripes also contrast nicely with the more gentle, faded decoration in the rest of the room. It’s a lesson to us all not to just go down the obvious road with upholstery, and to incorporate antique textiles wherever possible.
The inviting snug in Stella Weatherall’s Notting Hill house
Boz Gagovski
