New design secrets: Timeless townhouses & classic country homes
Uncover new interior design secrets to transforming your Yorkshire townhouse or country home into a timeless space full of light, flow and personality
Townhouses and country homes are inspiring, precious gems waiting to be transformed into sanctuaries to nourish you, your family and your friends. Whatever the heritage of your property, having key interior design insights at the heart of your vision will help ensure you achieve an extraordinary interior transformation that enhances your lifestyle and stands the test of time.
In both townhouses and country homes, we see original features as a gift, and we celebrate them. By honouring these details, and enhancing light, space, and flow, we create homes that feel grounded, elegant, and deeply personal. These principles, along with some inventive ideas from our Yorkshire-based interior design studio, are the secret to a home with the kind of comfort that invites you to truly unwind, entertain, and feel at ease.
Middlethorpe Interiors is an interior design studio in North Yorkshire. Led by accredited interior designer, Ann Allan, Middlethorpe offers full-service interior design, design consultancy and virtual design services to homeowners in Yorkshire. Explore our Yorkshire interior design services, whether you have a townhouse, country home or are looking for expert interior design input through a Colour Consultation.
The difference between townhouse and country home interior design
Every townhouse and country home is unique, with its own story, heritage, style, and layout. Townhouse interior design embodies a modern, minimalist feel, with layouts that often prioritise open plan living or embrace multiple floors, allowing for defined living areas. Frequently homes to professionals and busy families, functionality is a priority in the design of townhouses.
Country homes are often associated with being a place to retreat and rest, so their design may be centred around creating a cosier, warmer, more relaxed feel. Many country houses feature natural materials and traditional features that rightly dictate the tone of the interior design, evoking a bucolic charm.
We believe your townhouse or country home should honour its history, reflect your way of living now, and offer a calm retreat from the busyness of daily life.
Uncover and celebrate original features
Whether in a townhouse or a country home, original features give a property character, so celebrating them is at the heart of our interior design ethos. In fact, when we first visit a site and discover original features, whether in their original glory or in need of restoration, we are flooded with a sense of joy.
Townhouses are brimming with inspiring original features for you to honour. Look for spectacular high ceilings, ornate cornicing, marble fireplaces, decorative mosaic or encaustic tiles, sash windows, and hardwood flooring. If your property once had these features, but they’ve been removed over the years, we can help recover them.
Part of our interior design process involves understanding the history of a property and how you want to live in it. We carefully research the architecture to inform our design, ensuring it aligns with your preferences. Through thoughtful layout, colours, furnishings, and artwork, we create spaces that feel both timeless and modern, blending the old with the new.
An original fireplace can be celebrated with careful restoration or fresh paint and a more contemporary choice of tiling. Period detail can be found in hardware such as original door handles or hinges. Restoring these gives your townhouse its unique style and inspires the design of the rest of your home.
Country homes are often characterised by exposed wooden beams, natural stone walls, unusually shaped rooms and traditional features such as fireplaces, original windows, shutters, wall panelling, and flagstone floors. Many of these can be lovingly restored and incorporated into the style and functionality of your modern country home.
When designing a country house, use original features as your inspiration for the interior design of the rest of the house. Integrate natural materials in the home’s period features into newly fitted elements. In a farmhouse-style country home, an old fireplace may be home to a modern Aga, while a rustic-style kitchen with wooden cabinets and flagstone floors will showcase the property’s original character.
Maximise space
When you think of townhouses, think of height. Space in townhouses is often vertical, whether across multiple floors or in loft space, in tall storage elements that maximise high ceilings, or loft beds that offer space and storage for children.
When designing a townhouse, opting for open-plan living can utilise every square foot of space. Without the limitations of walls, open-plan interior designs allow for larger, adaptable spaces that can be used for multiple purposes. An office in the daytime can be a TV room in the evening, and combined kitchen and dining spaces can give you space for a family dining table or kitchen island.
Country homes have unique original features that can be utilised to create charming spaces. An old-fashioned walk-in larder can be redesigned as a beautiful walk-in pantry, a bespoke wine room, or even to treat a client’s dog to a joyful upgrade in accommodation. A bay window can be home to a window seat and reading nook with a garden view.
Give every space a purpose. Mudrooms in the entrance to country homes can be beautiful, useful spaces that help keep things organised and clean. Under-stairs spaces and other nooks and crannies can provide invaluable storage spaces that keep clutter organised and hidden away.
Bring the outside in
Utilise any outdoor space your townhouse has by making it seamlessly accessible from the inside. Sliding or bi-fold doors that sit flush with natural stone in a warmly lit courtyard can give you a relaxing second dining area ideal for entertaining on warm summer evenings, if planning and conservation laws permit.
When it comes to bringing the outdoors in, at Middlethorpe, we favour a considered, elegant approach. Think sculptural indoor trees like an olive or fiddle-leaf fig, positioned to add height, softness, and movement to a room. Herbs in window boxes, such as rosemary, thyme, or lavender will gently scent the air through an open bay window, where a tailored upholstered seat invites you to pause and enjoy the view with your morning coffee.
Natural light, garden outlooks, and organic materials underfoot complete the sense of a home in quiet harmony with the world outside.
Country homes often boast beautiful, established gardens. The best designs create seamless connections between these outside spaces—gardens, patios, or outdoor kitchens—and your inside living areas, giving families and friends ample space to retreat or entertain.
An indoor herb garden in a country kitchen is a great way to have herbs at your fingertips when preparing food and bring in the fresh smells of a traditional kitchen garden. Using floral patterns in the wallpaper and upholstery of your country home celebrates nature and connects your interior with the countryside of its surroundings.
Enhance natural light
Natural light is essential for well-being and comfort, so bring it into your home. Natural light can be boosted by allowing maximum light through existing windows—choose light, airy curtains or minimalist blinds to let light flood in. Avoid placing furniture in front of windows as this will block light.
Light coloured walls and other surfaces will reflect light and give the feel of a larger, brighter space. If you have large surface areas, such as a sizable kitchen island, opt for light-coloured or reflective materials like marble, stainless steel, or quartz. A bevelled edge can also enhance light reflection.
Placing decorative mirrors on walls will reflect and maximise light and give a sense of spaciousness. You might choose a large, framed mirror or a composition of smaller mirrors. Similarly, choose pictures and artwork that feature light or bright colours.
Roof lanterns, orangeries, Crittall-style glazed doors, and traditionally detailed glazed internal timber doors are all beautiful ways to bring natural light deep into a home. We often use pocket doors or internal glazing to help light flow between rooms without sacrificing elegance or privacy. Thoughtfully placed architectural glazing not only enhances natural light, but adds a refined sense of proportion and detail throughout both townhouse and country homes.
Optimise flow and ambience
The flow of a home is how people use and move through the living spaces. Well-designed flow will create a welcoming experience where everything in the home functions with ease, every space has a purpose, and every room feels spacious, calm, and clutter-free. View your home and all its rooms as one, rather than separate, unconnected spaces.
Create a colour palette for the home as a whole, so that colours throughout the house connect and complement each other. While using different colours from your palette for different rooms works well, using the same colour throughout for ceilings and woodwork helps maintain the flow. Similarly, opt for the same flooring throughout the main living areas to create a unified transition between spaces.
We recommend Edward Bulmer Natural Paint, as it uses the purest and healthiest plant-based ingredients. Opting for our Colour Consultancy service will help you transform your home with thoughtful, in-person advice, tailored to your style, your space and the way natural lights moves through your home.
Taking a consistent approach to the style you choose throughout your home will also enhance your flow while maintaining the right ambience. Whether your style is eclectic, modern, or traditional, adopt that style throughout the house.
Arrange furniture to create a natural flow that allows people to move freely around the house, with spacious walkways and minimal clutter. In areas where people will sit, arrange seating to encourage conversation and ensure comfort.
Whether you’re searching for a beautifully designed, timeless townhouse or classic country home, Middlethorpe Interiors offers you a different way of living in your home, where comfort becomes the ultimate luxury. To align your home with your lifestyle aspirations: explore how we can work together; get some expert input via a Colour Consultation; or simply get in touch.