Wendy Gilmour

8 Feb

A truly ‘Pinch Me’ moment followed by a ‘Simply Wow’ whole day happened at the end of last year when we spent the day shooting and styling with instagram influencer Wendy Gilmour.

The feature is in the current, March 2026 issue of House Beautiful magazine.

Wendy has left the walls in her living room bare plaster, to great effect. An idea she sourced in a café some years before she bought the house and was very struck by. ‘I was determined to use it in our family home, and I am so pleased I did. People often ask me what the paint colour is!’

We arrived and immediately loved Wendy’s warm, welcoming home, which is full of stunning vignettes and stylish details. Wendy loves vintage furniture, and she has made sure there are salvaged pieces in every room. ‘I feel a family home should feel warm and have a sense of history. I love old things. I do not really have a favourite shop; I prefer either junk shop finds or bespoke solutions’ she shares.

A cushion from Bluebellgray ‘Willow’ collection sits prettily in the entrance hall, alongside an autumnal Acer branch from the garden.

The kitchen island worktop houses an ingenious invisible induction hob on the worktop.

The painted hardwood kitchen cabinetry, painted in the same shade as the walls, ‘Silent White’ Deep Intelligent Eggshell by Little Greene is bespoke, and was made by a local cabinetmaker, who is now retired.
The brass handles are from the Suffolk Latch Company.
The 12mm Neolith Retro Stone worktops are from Rocca and have been mitred to give an oversized, 70mm slab appearance.

Wendy came across the dining table for free from a local upcycle group; it was water damaged and had been stored in a garage where the roof had blown off in a storm and had been open to the elements for 5 months. Wendy and her husband, Scott, sanded it and carefully restored it with beeswax and are delighted with the results. The chairs are vintage Bo Concept.

During the shoot we started to fully understand the lengths Wendy and Scott had gone to achieve the designer finish Wendy had envisioned. She is a real perfectionist and does not compromise once she has come up with an idea. The budget was tight though and the tradespeople they engaged, as so many people experience, were busy with a number of projects, so to push things forward and keep costs down Wendy and Scott undertook a lot of work themselves.

They installed insulation, laid flooring, fitted underfloor heating, and built a stunning, oversized luxury sofa. To buy something similar would have cost thousands of pounds, but by this time their confidence had grown to the point where they realised there was nothing they could not do.

The bespoke sofa was inspired by 1970s style ‘conversation pits…

Seriously you need to watch the videos on Instagram of Wendy building the sofa and she has shared her thoughts and plans on the design here on her blog.

This woman is NOT just a pretty face!

Although, she is wildly glamorous, of course, and I am very proud to be her friend. Why she puts up with me I have no idea though, during the shoot I did manage to pull the elegant brass blanket bars down, trying to ‘style’ the blankets…

Luckily her and Doug were both on hand to fix everything…

The project took a lot longer than they expected. ‘We hoped the builders would complete in 4 months, but it actually took 14 in total’ Wendy explains. The demolition began in October 2022, and the builders did their bit during the day and her and Scott began working on the insulation in April 2023 in the evenings and weekends. ‘The kitchen install was done in December, and I laid the floors.’ They completed on Christmas eve, 2023, it was a long haul, but there was a real sense of achievement in the end. ‘We honestly quite enjoyed it’ she admits!

Wendy has created a fun room for her son to reflect his many interests.

She hand painted the striped ceiling with a tape measure and a lot of Frog Tape and hung a colourful piece of muslin on a frame from the ceiling to create a cosy reading nook

The Wee Blue Bell Secret Garden duvet cover set makes the perfect finishing touch in her daughter’s bedroom.

The design was inspired by the bathroom of New York based fashion designer Jenna Lyons. Wendy has imitated the look using large format marble look porcelain tiles rather than real marble. The small painting at the end of the bath is an elegant touch and exactly what Jenna might do, ‘I love her style’ Wendy shares. The sunken bath and the inset mirrored wall cabinet cleverly create a feeling of space in this quite small room. The vanity unit with the drawer underneath the basin was designed by Wendy and made bespoke. Porcelain tiles are from Mandarin Stone.

Wendy has made a point of learning from a few favourite designers, including Sarah Sherman Samuel, based in the US and Roisin Lafferty, based in Ireland. She collected images on Pinterest and Instagram to help her put together her eclectic home.

‘Because I get a lot of ideas from my travels, there is definitely a hint of the Mediterranean here for instance, and I am aware that my interior can jump around a bit, I have tried to tie it together with a few common threads, including, most importantly, artwork that I love.’

We loved our day with Wendy and felt amazed and humbled by how much her and Scott had achieved. They learnt everything from You Tube videos and are generously passing on what they learnt on Wendy’s social platforms, it is quite thought provoking to realise what you can do if you put your mind to it. Their time and effort has saved them a lot of money and provided them with a glamourous and comfortable home.

I just need to finish our home now and will try and #bemorewendy

Please get in touch if you have completed an exciting interiors project that might work for a magazine project, I would love to see it!