Horton & Co are featured on The List by House & Garden – a directory of the best designers in the United Kingdom.

Our family home refurbishment project will feature this week on Homes by the Sea on More4.

Working alongside the architect on the redesign of this five-bedroom detached house, we were briefed to create a well-designed yet functional family home.

Light, colour and originality were key for the fun-loving family, but with young children the home had to be practical: that meant washable loose covers in bright colours for the dining chairs; durable, wipe-clean fabrics for the sofas, and colourful, functional joinery.

Horton won the ‘Entertaining Space of the Year’ category at the 2014 Northern Design Awards for our Music Room design.

We are currently working on the second phase of this project – a contemporary extension to the house with a gym and colourful playroom that opens out on to a new terrace area with exterior lighting design to allow the family to make the most of the incredible location and views.

Client Testimonial October 2014
We gave them a pretty tough brief – ‘we want our house to feel well designed, but not so it looks all design-y. Oh, and we have small children; so it has to look wonderful, but be practical enough so we don’t keep yelling “don’t touch that!”’
But they nailed it.
Every room feels like us – a true extension of what we’re like.
Every room looks different – yet they all flow into each other.
Every room is a pleasure to be in. Even better: we’ve yet to shout “don’t touch that!”
All our family loves our house. Our friends love coming round here, as do our children’s friends. We’ve spent more quality time with friends and family as a result. Horton’s designers have changed how it feels to live here. They have changed our lives.

Series 3 Episode 6 of Homes by the Sea will air on Tuesday 1st November at 9pm on More4.

We are delighted to announce the launch of our brand new website.

 Our new innovative site offers greater functionality and in-depth information for potential and existing clients to explore our design services and portfolio.   

The new site highlights some of our favourite projects, including a recent family home refurbishment and contemporary new build project.

You can view a selection of our projects here.

 As an award winning interior design practice, we are excited to now offer a complete package service. Horton can oversee the design of your whole project – the build, interiors and landscaping, keeping your vision at the heart of all design decisions. Working in close collaboration with you, preferred architects and landscape designers we’ll deliver a cohesive design across your whole project. Our teamwork-based approach to work ensures design continuity throughout each project, achieving the very best finish whether we’re tasked with a complete redevelopment or an individual soft furnishing scheme.

View a comprehensive list of our services here.

We’re proud to present our new look to you at www.hortonandco.co.uk.

We’ve worked closely with Stride, a Chester based graphic and web design studio, on our branding and they have developed and designed our new website.

 Website photography by Craig Magee Photography www.craigmagee.co.uk

Our in-house workroom is staffed by fully qualified experienced seamstresses who make beautiful hand sewn curtains, blinds, bed valances, bed throws, cushions and any form of soft furnishings to the highest standard and exquisitely finished.

Working with one of our interior designers, we offer a full consultation either in our showroom or on site and provide a full measuring, design and fitting service. In addition to this we can hand make curtains and blinds, to clients own specification, using their own fabric.

Our showroom is home to an extensive library of fabrics from a wide range of suppliers; examples such as Ralph Lauren, Mulberry, Colefax & Fowler and Pierre Frey are amongst our most popular collections.

Pièce de résistance! Our finishing touches really do add that extra dimension that commercially produced products fail to deliver. All soft furnishings are hand sewn using the highest quality materials, reflecting the pride and care taken in the quality of our work.

Our experienced fitters will ensure that your curtains, blinds or any window treatment and headboards are fitted and dressed perfectly.

A few examples of our work :

Sailor Woolworks, also commonly known as ‘Woolies’, became popular in the 19th Century as a pastime hobby for men working out at sea. Sailors learnt sewing and needle work skills through routine tasks such as repairing sails and clothing whilst on board. Seamen utilised these skills to make needle work pictures of their ships and the landscapes they sailed upon; passing the long hours and keeping their fingers nimble in the wind and cold.

Originating as a self-taught hobby and forming a tradition of wool work, these folk art pictures were not intended to be sold, therefore they are unsigned. It can, however, be possible to date the Woolworks, as seamen would incorporate significant elements such as patriotic flags and symbols, and quite often the ships name into the embroidery.

‘A great variety of stitches were used, such as the cross stitch, chain stitch, darning and the quilting technique called trapunto. The earliest existing examples of woolies date from the 1830s, and demonstrate the use of a chain stitch – each stitch seems to go into the one before and is less than a quarter of an inch long.  An adaptation of this stitch is the long stitch, used in woolies after 1840; it is a long stitch that leaves little thread on the back, saves wool and makes for much faster sewing. Some sailors even added bits of bone, metal, wood, glass, or some other such embellishment to decorate their woolwork ship portraits.’ (http://www.vandekar.com/sailors-woolies-woolwork-pictures.asp)

Woolworks were popular up until around World War 1. Since this time, retired seamen and fishermen had taken up the hobby rather than working men at sea. More recent works created a ‘great individual expression to produce remarkable personal tributes to the ships on which they sailed and to their own maritime histories’. Working from home also gave the opportunity to introduce finer materials such as cotton and silk when available, to embellish the traditional wool work.

We have a selection of Sailor Woolwork in our showroom for Sale.