Entrenched at New House

Normally New House is a picture of quiet and calm.

There are no main roads, railway lines, airports, bus routes, or anything noisy much at all at How Caple Court. Herefordshire is Britain's most sparsely populated county, and we're probably in the quietest thick of it. The nosiest things are the peacocks.

But this week things have changed.

Trenches are being dug everywhere, and there's mud and stone and up-rooted turf all over the place, as deep ditches link each building, as the Court gets a state-of-the-art sustainable heating system.

A giant ultra-modern wood-burning boiler is being constructed in one of the buildings, with hot-water pipes laid underground.

The idea is that the estate is surrounded by woodlands, so in place of imported oil, this home-grown wood can sustainably provide our future heating.  
 

Woopee - a new camera

At last we've invested in a new camera - a Canon 600D and 430xII flashgun with a new tripod.

We've been working with an old Panasonic Lumix inherited from my amazing Great-Uncle Vic - a clever electrical engineer who moved to Cowes IOW to work on flying-boats and hovercraft. He loved electrical gadgets to the end, but never left the IOW. So I take his old camera with me on my travels, hoping and believing he'll somehow get to see the places I visit.

The 600D may not be high in the Canon range, but after using point-and-shoot cameras for a few years, I'd forgotten how complex a proper SLR can be. It's a bit of a shocker to have a War-and-Peace-thick manual and to think about ISO settings, white-balance, what's the aperture up to and do I save to RAW or a jpeg?

I began my photographic career at 10 with an old Olympus PEN half-frame that gave me good results. School taught me how to use a darkroom, so I then bought a second-hand Canon FTb. I'd loved to have met the incredible japanese designers that created this camera - I dropped it down ravenes and took it all over the world with me, and now have an amazing archive of B & W photos. I graduated to an Olympus OM-2, who has been my faithful friend ever since. I even took it to Iran with me 2 years ago :

Since getting the new Canon 600D I've been wandering round the village, finding out how to use it. So far it seems pretty amazing

New House bought this camera to take white-background shots for our website - and it'll be fun expermenting!

Paint it black

Or any other colour we can think of...

Our new blind accessory collection (launching - this Summer) is going all colourful, and it's great having such a brilliant local paint company just 7 mile away in Ledbury, Cleftbridge Coatings.

New House has the environment and localism embedded into it, so why use some producer 1000's of miles away, when there are fantastic skills already on your doorstep?

Sometimes our 'made in England' policy does make our products appear more expensive, but New House has many fans overseas, so we must be doing something right!  

test colours

each colour is primed, sanded, primed and sanded again, and then sprayed it's final colour 

Laura Fletcher looks into the future....

Laura Fletcher is New House's amazing weave designer and also in charge of our new roller blind accessory collection. She is also our trend expert. 

Most of New House's collections usually last 3 years, so whatever we're doing, we often ask Laura to create a few mood boards. Our major work this year is our new roller blind and accessory collection, so Laura has made mood boards for the mid-point of these collections, which is Autumn/Winter 2013 - 14 :

Precious Cosmos : Inspiration is drawn from the surfaces and textures of the moon and our solar system. A new play on light and dark shades and a theme that is both striking and dramatic.

Colour      Dark shimmering tones of midnight blue and sepia are lightened against smoky greys, copper and sea grass. A timeless palette between shadow and light.

Rustic Retreat : Natural materials are enriched with luscious yarns and landscapes, creating a mood of warmth and comfort. The mood creates a fun, relaxed and simple atmosphere for everyday living.

Colour      A collection of comforting, mid tone colours, honey and oat tones mix with candied lime, zesty coral and warm orange.

Tender Escape : A soft elegant mood that takes its inspiration from the wintery shapes of nature. Think of bare trees creating intricate lace-like patterns against the sky or crisp, frost-covered foliage. Combine these motifs with ultra soft yarns and fur to create a look of understated luxury. A mood to cocoon yourself in

Colour       A muted palette of vegetal soft greys and taupes that have faded with time. Pigments of tea stained neutrals are used with mink, washed sand and limestone greys.

Charlotte's first solo show

Charlotte Farmer is one of our star designers, and everytime she draws something I smile.

If you're in Bath anytime between 7th and 25th April, can I suggest you visit the Rostra Gallery

Charlotte is the best illustrator I know - so check out her show!

Our new light tent

We've had fun at New House today with our new toy - a 'light tent'. It looks like something left over from Chernobyl, or a place of retreat if the Black Death ever returned.

However it's a pretty straight-forward bit of kit - a white fabric box that diffuses spot lights, and makes taking 'white-background' shots easy. David Bailey and Cecil Beaton would run a mile, but it's amazing how important these shots are these days. You see white-background shots (or cut-outs) everywhere, and magazines love them for their new product pages. These are a few of our first attempts....

                 our new Diamond Jubilee mug

                                         Diamond Jubilee souvenir mug and tea towel set

                                         Diamond Jubilee souvenir WOOF mug and tea towel

                        Stack of Diamond Jubilee WOOF mugs  

Looks like I need a bit of practice to get this thing right.... it's all to do with light balance and exciting things like that.



Mercedes Museum, Stuttgart

Visiting a prosperous, well-ordered German City is always great, so I skipped the odd afternoon at the R & T exhibition to explore Stuttgart.

It was lovely to sit in the sun, eating apfelstrdel in the Schloss area, and I also visited the Mercedes Museaum. In truth, I've never been that interested in cars, but my mum loves her little A-Class, and Mercedes are an icon of engineering and design.



The museum is pretty amazing (the photo above is not mine, but the rest are).  I loved the elevators, that were something from a Fritz Lang film

 

the first engine

the first cars

the first motorcycle

and the early Merc's

The fantastic supercharged cars of the '20's & 30'S



The aero engines of the 40's (sorry, but I took no pictures)... but I did take a pic of this cute 50's van

The gull-wing 60's and the 'bad guys'car



In the 70's, I vagely remember the most glamorous of my parents friends driving one of these 'pagoda roof' Merc's

I had a go in the race simulator, and couldn't stop laughing as I skid through turns in a 30's Silver Arrow racer, or had a go round Monte Carlo in an F1 car. Two people sit in the simulator, and my companion turned out to be a good German gentleman who'd raced Porsche’s round Le Mans (I apologised for my bad driving).



When my dad was 5yrs old, he remembers that his dad took him to a race meeting where he saw the 1936 Mercedes and Auto-Unions cream the old-fashioned British cars. These cars are in the museum too



The clever Germans end the museum with a showroom of their latest cars. I can tell you that after seeing their greats from the past, I was ready to sign up for anything as I sat in their latest SLK or new C-class coupe.

My only reservation was that my family are dyed-in-the-wool MG, Triumph, Jag or BMW people (only my mum has gone Mercedes).

The museum reminded me of the restless nature of the clever German people. This reminded me of how my own company, New House is always seeking improvement too, and believe it's important to keep presenting the very best in new design to the customer.