Call it having a sweet tooth for decorating. In his 1877 ashlar stone house, nestled near Lake Townsend in southwestern Ontario, Torontonian James Hewson has a retreat that boasts a delicious bumper crop of decorating notions.
An architectural illustrator of interiors, and an interior designer, Hewson certainly knows the traditions and conventions of design. That's given him plenty of confidence to play about with fanciful ideas and bright hues. This is a house in which colour is used with refreshing boldness – palettes to tingle the palate. Hewson hasn't hesitated to use a different set of bright colours in each room: cornflower and ultramarine blues, rosy stripes, mint green, sunshine yellow. Yet there's a knowing sophistication beneath the cheerful vignettes that enliven his classic farmhouse.
Oh, give me a home where the ideas roam. Over the years, Hewson's travels have taken him across Europe, to Mexico and into the Far East. In a light, unserious, yet careful fashion, he has brought mementoes from his trips into his decorating. In the blue bedroom, for example, Hewson used an ultramarine batik fabric brought back from Bali for the bedspread and window blind. In combination with a brass bed topped by a ceiling-mounted canopy of star-patterned fabric, the batik seems like a designer nod in the direction of British Colonial exoticism. But it's not simply an idea drawn from a book: Hewson's recollections of “bold fabrics displayed on lines in the outdoor markets in the villages close to Ubud” turn a decorating idea into a vivid anecdote for guests.
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