Interesting final. Very different designs. I think that Matt took the brief to tie the lodge into Blenheim Palace quite literally, clearly Roisin had a looser interpretation. I think what swung it for Roisin was that the judges were looking at the spaces as what someone booking into a holiday lodge in the grounds of BP would be expecting, and how they might use the space.
I imagine people from abroad would look at Roisin’s design and think Laura Ashley, English country garden, afternoon tea, napkins and doilies. Matt’s felt very much less placeable as an aesthetic and I thought his living room furniture looked really formal and uncomfortable. I understand why he chose it, it just didn’t look like somewhere I’d want to sit for any length of time.
I found the black and white quite stark too, and although I appreciated the column and panelling idea, the finishing wasn’t good in places, particularly the paint job. You could totally see that they’d filled the grooves straight away in the hallway as the colour was lighter on the filler.
Rather like Monika in the pub challenge who I seem to remember gold-leafed her bar, the island would get very scratched up very quickly so not at all practical. Likewise having a fire pit type thing sat on an outdoor rug… I think Matt missed a trick not to have a dining table outside too.
I didn’t mind the scallop motif in Roisin’s although wasn’t keen on green again, and rolled my eyes when I saw those bloody picture frames with bobbles again. I weirdly liked the wallpaper and pink cabinets, the rattan lights and the 2 armchairs but didn’t like the yellow. It was just too much and too clashing for my taste.
Matt was definitely the series winner, but I think Roisin edged the final design as it was more country house lodge.
