Wild Isle Style: Resourceful And Sustainable Interior Design Ideas

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It’s an accessible roadmap to creating authentic and sustainable design that doesn’t cost the earth. It doesn’t matter whether you’re living in London or the Hebrides, I think we can just decide to actually make a conscious effort not to run out to these big stores and buy flat things. ‘Because part of the adventure is just getting the free stuff, isn’t it? I love going and meeting the person that I’m getting it off and going into their living room and you’ve got a story then immediately where it’s from.

TV interior design guru Banjo Beale launches new book

Sophie Allen, senior commissioning editor, acquired world rights from Ben Clark at the Soho Agency. Wild Isle Style will publish on 12th October 2023. In the first episode, Banjo and his team get to transform a much loved family run fish shop in Tobermory on the Isle of Mull. Commissioned by his friend and fish shop manager Sally, Banjo must try and fulfill her dream to modernize her family’s traditional business. But the 38-year-old said making a programme during wild weather just shows what life is really like on the islands. Banjo found his way to the big smoke, working in advertising, eventually landing the plum role of 'Ideas Director'. He was quite literally in charge of coming up with ideas, a role that suited this perpetual dreamer.

The following year, Chris invited Ro and Banjo to lease the café and farm shop - a gorgeous vine filled barn erected by the Reade family in the 80's. Ro was the cook and bookkeeper and Banjo, the stylist behind every plate, picture and latte art. The Glass Barn is a playground of curios and collections and a constant canvas and it was here that Banjo learned the art of reimagining whatever was at hand, into something useful or unusual. ​

Banjo Beale Wikipedia, Partner, Husband, TV Show, Age, House Banjo Beale Wikipedia, Partner, Husband, TV Show, Age, House

The Isle of Mull – the second largest island of the Inner Hebrides, off the west coast of Scotland – has been home to Banjo for over eight years with his husband Rohan, a cheesemaker, who often helps out on the show. But it’s perhaps not an ideal place to launch an interior design business? Especially when he has the world at his feet after winning Interior Design Masters. Upon seeing the finished interior, local resident and community trust director Colin Morrison commented: "Genuinely, I wasn't sure what to expect and I think it just feels really homely, somewhere that it would be great to go and stay in. And they only had a few days to do it, it's amazing." Banjo says: “My hometown of Tobermory is one of the most colourful in the UK but on the inside, some of the spaces are crying out for character. Thankfully, some brave locals are handing me the keys to their places, from a bothy two hours walk from the nearest road to a remote lighthouse, castle turret and beloved community rugby club. They’re dream properties to design but logistical nightmares to deliver.

We were actually in 'my' bar in Soho, with Alan and and the rest of the nine other guys [10 designers took part in the competition], and the production crew and some others. Watching it with 30 rowdy A type personalities in a Soho bar was all a bit mad for me. It wasn't like watching it in the little hotel room in London I'm normally staying in. Where are you now? I think it’s just such a special place,’ says Banjo. ‘I live in Tobermory, which I don’t know if you ever saw watched Balamory [the children’s TV show], but it’s the most colourful town in Scotland. But all the houses really are quite greyish inside. And I thought, it’s a bit crazy to start my business here, but I can do it. And the locals, they’re all my mates. Even in the show, they’re my mates.’ Beale, also the star of the recent six-part BBC show “Designing the Hebrides” , as well as a judge on “Scotland’s Home of the Year”, said: “ Wild Isle Style is my roadmap for embarking on a design adventure, where we throw out the rule book and meet the colourful characters behind spaces that don’t cost the earth. A new television series following Banjo as he launches his design career in the Hebrides is set to air in summer 2023. The series follows Banjo as he renovates incredible properties in remote locations including a lighthouse, castle and bothy two hours walk from the nearest road. Banjo battles wild weather, straight talking locals and tiny budgets to create characterful spaces in spectacular places.

BBC Designing The Hebrides - Media Centre - BBC

The whole premise of the book is from the perspective of living on an island, embracing the materials that we have, using finite resources and only our own skills to bring them to life. So, it’s about taking that mindset into everything we do. Also on an island, you just have fun, there’s no pressure, and it’s not trying to be trendy. It’s just, it’s just a little bit of fun and tongue in cheek.’ The intense pressure that goes on behind the scenes. I think I just lived and breathed the competition and each design. I'd go to sleep thinking about it and wake up thinking about it. BBC/Darlow Smithson Productions Doing two storeys of a Soho bar – some challenge! How did you even start to come up with an idea for a scheme? BB: That's a good question. I really love Tilda Swinton, so I'd love to snoop around her house. I feel like it could either be totally minimal and she doesn't have anything, or it would be really eccentric and full of art and all of her clothes. I really do love her.We knew that we had to follow Banjo on his next adventure when he told us that he wanted to start his interior design business on the Isle of Mull,” says Donna Clark, Executive Producer and DSP MD. Filming with Banjo in such breathtakingly beautiful locales and showcasing his unique creative work has been a true delight. I can’t wait for everyone to meet the collectors, thinkers and tinkerers, from the Hebrides to Antipodes, who have opened up their world to share how we can all create cool, calm and collected interiors.” Interior Design Masters winner Banjo: 'I've decided that interior design is 99% logistics and 1% design' The rest is history, but what was it really like being on the show? And how scary is Michelle Ogundehin when it comes to judgment time?