Joanne Hardcastle’s whimsical home, filled with colour and quirky touches

After years of renovating, Joanne Hardcastle’s eclectic period home packs a punch with bold colour, repurposing and daring design

Known for her love of whimsical design, Joanne Hardcastle’s eye for combining pattern and colour has certainly contributed to her online success as an interiors writer and content creator. ‘I’m an accidental Instagrammer!’ she laughs. During lockdown she took on another passion project and co-wrote an inspirational design book, The Art of Home. And all this was before she even appeared on series four of Interior Design Masters.

Her own home has been a labour of love, after 25 years of building and decorating together with her husband Tim. Despite the rotten windows, rusty bath fittings and unexpected holes in the walls, they could see the potential when they first viewed this Edwardian house. ‘There were three beautiful etched glass windows in the internal doors, the biggest bay window you ever saw and a view to die for. We were a young couple with a baby, a very small budget and big ideas,’ reminisces Joanne.

Her creative flair is evident in the curated collections and exuberant colours she uses to bring a playful vibe into each room, and her fanciful interior style is regularly admired by her Instagram followers. ‘I’m a magpie and I just love stuff,’ says Joanne. ‘I like to mix unexpected things together: vintage, modern, kitsch. I have a love of old dolls and things with faces on.’

Entering the home through a zesty-yellow door, guests are welcomed into the space that Joanne is most proud of. The couple carefully stripped back the original wooden staircase before painting both the stairs and walls in a rich chocolate hue – Tanner’s Brown by Farrow & Ball.

‘I love colour and am drawn to deep, dark shades,’ she enthuses. Wanting to impart a touch of opulence to the period hallway, she added copper leaf to the risers, which bounces the light around and creates a sunny glow, while the deeply embossed Lincrusta dado wallpaper and reproduction radiator inject even more Edwardian charm into the entryway.

The living room renovation was less than straightforward. ‘The ceiling once fell down during the night!’ recalls Joanne. The living-room door had a crack in the delicate period glass, so Joanne took a photo of the etched design to get an exact copy made. Similarly, when a piece of the picture rail in the living room was missing, Tim and Joanne had a mould made from the existing piece to sympathetically repair it.

It took many months of searching before the couple found a suitable fireplace to reinstate. ‘I love the living-room fireplace; it’s an almost perfect match for the footprint of the original one. We found it in a fireplace shop on the platform at Knaresborough train station. It was from an old school.’

The dining room is where all the family congregate and has become a favourite space over the years. ‘When the girls were little it was where they played. The table has seen them learning to write, doing homework, studying for exams. It’s the real heart of the home,’ says Joanne. They reopened the bricked-up fireplace to add a colourful tiled hearth and cosy wood burner, while the original bay window was replaced with Crittall-style doors, which link the dining room to the courtyard garden.

Joanne has added opulence to the master bedroom with a colour-drenched look in peacock hues, using rich teal on the woodwork, walls and wardrobes, which helps the fitted cupboards ‘disappear’ into the walls. While revamping the space, she painted their furniture in an inky midnight blue and distressed the edges with flecks of metallic gold, to echo the gilt picture frames and brass handles in the room.

WORDS: CASSIE FAIRY