We met the wonderful Rebecca from My English Country Cottage to talk to her about the runaway success of her recently launched business.
Who or what inspired you to set up your business?
When I started my Instagram account two years ago, I didn’t even understand the app, let alone expect to so quickly amass a gorgeous following of like minded country cottage loving friends who enjoy a cup of tea by the Aga and stories about daily life in a crumbly old cottage in the countryside.
My brilliant plan was to start ‘something to do with interiors’ so that when my children abandoned me and I was left a sobbing mess, rocking hysterically by the Aga and knocking back the gin, I would at least have a base to start to rule my own life again and create a ‘wonderful new excellent sparkly career’.
Pre-children, I was a fabulously unsuccessful actress who also wrote comedy sketches (I was one of the first writers to collaborate with Stephen Merchant pre-‘The Office’, I’m still not entirely sure how I am living in a 400 year old cottage surrounded by children and mud and he is lounging by a pool in Hollywood…(That’s what they all do when they become successful, oh and drink Pina Coladas).
I gracefully (gratefully) bowed out of my un-shiny career to create a home and family on the Cambridgeshire/ Essex/ Suffolk borders ( I couldn’t even pick a county let alone a new career). My children are now 9 and 11 and thanks to the success of my Instagram page and the subsequent magazine articles and interviews (I have been featured doing some brilliant wafting around our house in Period Living Magazine last year and 25 Beautiful Homes and Gardens this year as well as a number of newspapers and smaller magazines) I have been brave enough to start helping friends with their interiors projects, as well as finding my writing fingers again (bit like sea legs).
I have recently been asked to venture into the interiors magazine world helping to create and style a variety of country homes with my “effortless rural style” (Period Living quote) – I have taken this as a positive comment on my interior design style rather than a reference to the lack of housekeeping, muddy wellies and occasional strange smell. I love to take a room that has been forgotten in the hurly burly of family life and bring a fresh country feel through textures, layers and colour – I try to avoid including the mud and strange smells.
Instagram @myenglishcountrycottage
What do you love most about your work?
I get my writing fix through my website, focusing on a different cottage every week along with a weekly garden and recipe blog provided by the amazing @flowersandlifestylebymargot and @lucyhoylecooks.
Hopefully I can now combine my passion for styling with my love of writing to create a monthly blog for the wonderful Ruralmums Website of Loveliness.
