Britain & Co.

26/05/2026

The paint on these walls came from the garden.
Clay excavated on site, refined and hand-mixed into a bespoke finish. Applied alongside other natural paints and joinery finished with Marseille soap. Every material in the same aesthetic register.
This is a Victorian family home near Hampstead Heath, retrofitted to Passivhaus EnerPHit standard within a Conservation Area. The brief from the inspirational was performance and heritage, not one or the other.
The project is featured in the April 2026 issue of Premier Construction and has been shortlisted for a 2026 RIBA London Award.
If you are specifying finishes for a heritage retrofit, we are always glad to talk.
Full feature at britaindecoration.com

18/05/2026

A privilege to spend London Craft Week at Painters’ Hall this year, demonstrating oil gilding on architectural mouldings alongside our fellow Freemen of the
On the bench: a decorative panel from , egg-and-dart and other profiles from , and gold leaf generously supplied by . Also on display, Chris’s father’s gilding cushion and knife, still in use after 70+ years.
The best part is always the conversations: with visitors curious about historic finishes, with fellow makers swapping techniques across trades, and with the next generation coming through training routes like the Heritage Skills Programme.

04/12/2025

02/12/2025

Here’s something unexpected: limewash dries in a completely different pattern every single time. Even on the same wall.

This unpredictability is part of its ancient charm. Historically, households would repaint their limewashed walls regularly, each layer settling into a soft echo of past colours. Today, most clients choose limewash deliberately for the same quality people once tried to cover up.

In recent projects, we’ve seen designers push limewash in adventurous ways: layered tonal schemes, delicate clouding effects, directional brushmarks and washes. But achieving this relies on deep material knowledge. You can’t “force” limewash. You have to understand how it breathes.

That’s why collaboration is essential. We work closely with architects and designers to align vision with material truth. Sometimes the material gives you exactly what you imagined. Sometimes it offers something better. Our job is to guide the process so the result feels intentional, timeless, and beautifully alive.

There’s something magical about a surface that continues to shift with the daylight.

Would you choose limewash over a modern matt paint?

27/11/2025

Most people fall in love with limewash for its softness. What they don’t realise is that the beauty comes from what you can’t control.

Limewash is one of the oldest forms of architectural paint, used on everything from cottages to palazzi. Its depth comes from subtle shifts in tone, the natural mottling as light moves across the surface. That movement is part of the material’s character, and it’s something we actively protect.

When we work with architects and designers, the first conversation is always about expectations. Limewash cannot behave like modern paint. It breathes, it settles, it absorbs differently on each part of a wall. And when applied well, those variations are what create that unmistakable, quiet luminosity.

Our role is to steward the material. Understanding substrates. Sequencing coats. Managing drying times. Knowing where the mottling will enhance and where it needs control. These are the details you only learn from years of doing the work.

If you’re exploring limewash for a project, what kind of atmosphere do you imagine the room to have?

We’d love to hear.

20/11/2025

There is something joyful about hand painted furniture in a country interior. For this country house, the furniture needed something that felt handmade and uplifting, with a nod to folk decoration and English garden motifs.

This painted scheme was a pleasure to create. The brief called for a naïve, playful nature theme that felt timeless and rooted in the character of the house. We developed a light, fluid pattern of flowers, berries and leaves, painted in a soft country palette with gentle greens, yellows and warm pinks.

The charm lies in the simplicity. Each flower was painted by hand, allowing small variations in tone and brushwork that give life to the surface. Nothing is overly perfect. The design follows the curves and panels of the furniture, settling into the architecture of the pieces as though it has always been there.

Projects like this show how colour, craft and nature can bring warmth and character into a room.

27/06/2025

A return visit to our gilding and decorative work at Theatre Royal, Drury Lane—London’s oldest theatre site in continuous use. The crest is even more imposing up close, and it’s all still gleaming beautifully five years on.

13/06/2025

A quiet moment on site: These small, meditative acts are the foundation of enduring craftsmanship.

19/04/2024

The Harrow Schools Speech Room project required simultaneous actions due to its diverse needs. One challenging yet beautiful aspect was the restoration and preservation of stained glass windows, which were tall in height. All conservation and restoration efforts for these windows were carried out concurrently with those for the ceiling.

17/04/2024

Stripping away the excess, revealing the beauty in simplicity. Embracing minimalism in every detail of decoration and restoration, from clean lines to natural materials.