If you're dreaming of bringing a bit of heritage charm into your home - without spending a fortune - you're in the right place.

We're so excited to announce our exclusive collaboration with The House of Abigail, the brainchild of interior designer, mum-of-three, and self-confessed serial doodler, Abigail Cole-Tromans. 

First up? A charmingly nostalgic range of 60 beautifully illustrated children's prints, brought to life as curtains, Roman blinds, and roller blinds (even Twist&Fit) across 247 Blinds and 247 Curtains. This collection is a celebration of playfulness, heritage, and the magic of childhood - all with a nod to British hertiage and design that's made to fit modern day homes. 

But, before we dive into the boiled eggs, gingham, and jousting dinosaurs (yes, really!), let's rewind a little to get to know the woman behind the designs. 

Where it all began...

Every great idea starts somewhere. For Abigail, it began with a childhood packed full of make-believe, muddy shoes, and a fascination with old british houses.

"Like all good British childhoods, mine was littered with afternoons in the wendy house, trips to heritage properties for a picnic in a National Trust car park, or running around a walled kitchen garden, whatever the weather. And perhaps it was here that my love for both 'playing house' and British heritage was formed."

This blend of rainy garden adventures and admiring from behind velvet ropes in grand homes was more than just fun for Abigail, it lit a creative spark.

"I remember being as fascinated with the 'upstairs' living spaces as I was with the 'downstairs' working spaces of these iconic British estates. As a small girl, the grand staterooms with their opulent brocaded drapery and silk-lined walls (and chairs with pine cones neatly arranged to stop small bottoms from sitting on them!) would inspire awe and wonder. The curiousities acquired from long-ago 'grand-tours' and the ornate detailing on display still, often hundreds of years later, showed off the crafstmanship of every object within the room."

"And the 'downstairs' behind-the-scenes spaces with their tiled-wall labryinths of sculleries, kitchens, and pantries delighted me equally. I was captivated by the rows of wooden pegs for the hung livery, the tall shaker-framed cabinets and dressers which housed extensive crockery collections, and even the simple form of a Wycombe chair beside the fireplace on which I imagined Cook would take a pause from turning out all those intricate copper jelly moulds."

It's this eye for the tiny, story-filled details that you'll see in every House of Abigail print. Whether it's a tiny starfish or a colourful tent, there's always a thread of narrative running through. 

“This early visual education, gleaned in these grand heritage homes across the UK, laid the foundation for my love of design, which followed me through my years studying architecture, and ultimately led to my work as an interior designer.”
From sketches to sample books - how The House of Abigail came to life
 

 Fast forward a few years, and Abigail had forged her career in the world of design and interiors - working behind the scenes for some of the biggest brands in the biz. 

“For nearly twenty years, I have had the joy of working as a designer and art director with homeware brands and print houses here in the UK. Through all that, I’ve been intrigued with what makes a home, room, or design scheme look and feel recognisably ‘British’, and how the once ‘below-stairs’ style has now become an aspirational, heritage-inspired look in our homes.”

It's a blend of polish and practicality that feels timeless - but also totally liveable. Abigail has a knack for mixing the grand and the grounded. 

“My love for the rhythm and pace of heritage buildings, the design principles of the grand staterooms and the up- and downstairs interiors has set a pattern in my work, developing my own look and style. I love to try and bring the two worlds from those grand properties together, often by creating a nostalgic combination of eccentric pattern play, inspired by the screen-printed botanicals and brocades of the opulent staterooms, set against the physical forms of the simple utilitarian design of the working spaces below. This clash of aesthetics, both with a firm grounding in British historical properties, has enabled me to define a style which I’ve had the enormous privilege of emulating with household brands and home retailers for nearly twenty years.”

And then came The House of Abigail - starting humbly, as many brilliant things do, with a little corner of the internet and a lot of curiosity…

“In 2023, I launched The House of Abigail, initially as an Instagram account to showcase my portfolio and the work of my team. Showcasing what one dear friend called ‘the Abigail Aesthetic’, it was the first time friends and family had really been able to view my work. The stories and posts behind how I and the team assembled whole schemes for projects across the UK and with various brands quickly brought with them a lot of requests for help - over coffees, dinners, and even during a child’s birthday party.”

“The pleas for help or ideas for friends’ own homes came thick and fast - which, for the record, I relished: permission to have an opinion, brilliant! However, over time, I became increasingly frustrated that my friends (and later followers) would ask how they could get my look on their budget, or in their much-loved-but-not-palatial home, and my answer would often fall short of the solution they needed and deserved.”

Sound familiar? We’ve all been there - drawn to a style that doesn’t quite fit our space or our budget, doomed to never make it beyond the confines of our Pinterest boards. And if Abigail couldn’t make it work in her own home, something had to change.

“This was especially evident in my own home, a smart, but very much new build in a village near Bath, Somerset. Returning home after designing stunning lifestyle shoots or creating marketing imagery for the biggest names in British homeware retail, I would look at my perfectly lovely (but definitely not worthy of brown and oak leaf signage) home, and feel the frustration that the style of interiors I loved and was good at designing felt beyond my own reach.”

“I realised that if the look I was promoting, and which my work proved that many of us had a nostalgic and almost patriotic affinity to, felt out of reach for me, the designer, then it must feel out of reach for many others too. And that was wrong. The aspirational look of our collective history seemed as though it was still only for those with ‘upstairs’ budgets and staterooms.”

 That’s the heart of it all - heritage design should feel attainable. And it should work in real homes. Even ones with toy-strewn floors and not-so-grand proportions.

“Most heritage-inspired print scales are not optimised for the smaller window apertures or lower ceilings of modern British new builds, creating oversized pattern repeats and often exaggerating the smaller proportions of the room. And even if you’re lucky enough to have heritage proportions, the curated aesthetic of pattern play and layered prints and plains often requires an exhausting search for the perfect pattern-clashed cloths and colour-perfect papers, and you’d probably need to pay an interior designer to help assemble a balanced scheme, taking the project to a more ‘upstairs’ budget than many of us could aspire to. And so, I took a deep breath and dared to consider how I might be able to help solve this problem.”

“‘How can the aspirational British interior scheme be made attainable, both at price point and in process?’ was the question. And the answer, quite unexpectedly, came from piles of meeting notebooks filled with sketches – where there ought to have been important meeting notes. As a perpetual doodler and sketcher (in a distracted and inattentive way and not a romantic, pained artist way), I had filled these notebooks, totally unaware that in doing so I’d spent nearly twenty years designing a collection of patterns and motifs which were my very own interpretations of all the patterns and prints I had soaked up over the years. And so, using these as my foundation, I started to design a range of cloths and papers which would enable all of us to find ‘a new way to play house'.”

And just like that...

 “The House of Abigail as a print house was born.”

“These collections of heritage-inspired prints are all scaled to work in a range of property proportions and are colour calibrated with our unique colourways, enabling you to create your own perfectly pattern-played scheme and bring a slice of British heritage interiors into your own castle, however grand it is – or isn’t! 'Because decorating your home should be fun, playful and joyful, and, crucially, accessible to everyone'.”

We couldn't agree more.

At 247 Blinds and Curtains, we've teamed up with Abigail to bring her vision to life - starting with this charming collection of children's prints inspired by everything from rockpooling to days at the fair, jousting dinosaurs to school sport's day.

And this is just the beginning. 

Whether you're decorating a box room, a bunk-bed share, or a Lego minefield, these prints are designed to make your little one's space feel joyful, playful, and completely them. 

Explore The House of Abigail collection now - available as Roman blinds & roller blinds (even Twist&Fit for fuss-free fitting), as well as made to measure curtains.

Need a closer look? Order unlimited free samples and find your perfect match at home.