Chimneypieces are an important architectural detail and in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, would have been built specifically for a particular room. To accommodate the varying demands of space, style and historical imperative, Jamb offers an extensive bespoke chimneypiece service.
 
During London Craft Week, the Jamb window displays marble carving and the craftsmanship behind the chimneypiece, as founder Will Fisher describes:
 
‘Firstly the design is drawn up in our London Workshop. A little like pattern cutting, we work out how much marble is needed for the design and how it would be cut within the block. Then we request the block of marble from Italy with photos and a sample to show the client. Once this is approved the marble is shipped over from Italy. Once it arrives the fireplace is then cut into sections and hand carved. We also source English stone and Jamb is acclaimed for its distressing service to create the patina of age.’

Jamb sources rare and beautiful marbles and stone, materials that have been mined for centuries to create some of most beautiful chimneypieces throughout the ages.
 
‘The marbles can be inlaid or carved from block. Examples that we have used in bespoke fireplace designs include; Convent Sienna, Verde Antico, Porphyry, Breche, Brocatello, Belgium Black and Oche de Pavone. We have also created stunning chimneypieces from Pietra Serena stone. Our work with creating bespoke fireplaces has a truly extensive nature, ranging from creating an entire collection of one off mantels for a Neoclassical mansion, to the demands of designing and building a unique Gothic centrepiece for a Chateau in France.’
 
All bespoke work, whatever the scale, is undertaken with care and precision by highly skilled and knowledgeable craftsmen at Jamb’s workshop here the UK.
 
www.jamb.co.uk
www.elizabethmachinpr.com/jamb-and-hawker-antiques

​Lauded for her innovative techniques, international designer Michaela Schleypen originated filigree rug sculpting as a way of developing a new three-dimensional visual language rarely seen before. Her skill for sculpting materials as if she were a jeweller combined with her fine colour graduation turns her rugs into fashionable artworks for floors.
 
Schleypen’s work is often described as floor couture. Her new Tweed collection celebrates the cutting-edge of a classic cloth. It’s a nod to Chanel. It’s tweed boldly and beautifully reinvented for floors.
 
Each tetris-like cube is hand sculptured and carved in relief to give a full three-dimensional experience.  These are technically accomplished and complex designs comprising many shades to create a striking pattern. Colourways are Brit Pop red and green and Old School blue and grey.  Materials contrast New Zealand wool with lustre cotton.

Schleypen’s rugs are handmade using a dense tufting process with traditional fibres such as silk and wool into which she mixes unexpected materials including lustre cottons, neon, denim threads and precious stones. If that isn’t enough to revolutionise rug making, she even creates her own unique colour-scale.
 
It is the heady mix of the prescribed and the unforeseen, the innovative fusion of fashion and interiors that makes her rugs so highly sought after and desired.

​Michaela Schleypen’s work is exclusively represented in the UK by FRONT.
frontrugs.com
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Have you seen Max Rollitt in House & Garden’s May issue? He has the People Lifestyle spread that suits him down to the ground as he is a man who wears many hats.
 
Max is that rare breed. He’s a hybrid, who like other greats such as Robert Kime, combines antique dealing with interior decoration.  He marries academic knowledge and creative understanding of the aesthetics of time into a classically refined yet informal style that has become his trademark.
 
One word that crops up in conversations with Max is joyful and that is what he is all about. He creates joyful homes, which are elegant, effortlessly ccomfortable, interesting and look as though they have evolved over generations.
 
Max trained as a furniture designer and maker, and was apprenticed to Frearson and Hewlett, an antique furniture restoration workshop supporting the top London trade. He became fanatical about craftsmanship and patination and developed an eye for quality and scale. Today he combines the finest 18th and 19th century English antiques with more extraordinary and unusual textiles, ceramics, pictures, lighting and other ephemera.  Most of all he looks for beauty, purity and for authenticity in antiques.

He sells antiques to decorators - people like Axel Vervoordt, Colefax and Fowler and Michael S Smith and when he was first asked to decorate a house, it seemed like a natural progression.
 
Max’s unique vision and instinct for colour, form and texture integrate the beautiful qualities of the antique into composed contemporary interiors. This original approach and intuitive response to interior decoration makes a room feel it has been there forever.
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His third fine hat is furniture making and his bespoke collection is inspired by his favourite purchases and combine his fine design skills with the best of British craftsmanship.
 
Max has a gorgeous must-see showroom in Hampshire. ‘The shop is my decorating arsenal. I can raid it to find things for clients and if something doesn’t work, I can take it back again.’ He opens his showroom on the first Saturday morning of each month and the rest of the time it is open by appointment. 
 
Finally, for all on Max's radar.... he can now be found on Instagram.
 
Instagram: max_rollitt
 
www.maxrollitt.com

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