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Last updated: 08.10.2026
French Bedroom x Country Homes & Interiors Magazine
For episode 3 of In Bed With, our founder Georgia Metcalfe is joined by Andréa Childs, Editor of Country Homes & Interiors, for a conversation that takes us right back to where French Bedroom began. From the French bed that started it all to the architecture, travel, craftsmanship, and homes that continue to inspire Georgia today, this episode celebrates our first 20 years and the story behind Avenue d’Amour, a collection that brings us rather wonderfully back to the beginning.
A French Bedroom Series
In Bed With is a series where Georgia invites inspiring women from the worlds of interiors, design, and business to join her for a rather inspiring chat from bed.
It is a chance to step behind the brands we admire and hear the stories that are not always seen from the outside. From how an idea first took shape to the lessons learnt along the way, Georgia talks openly with her guests about creativity, building a business, and the people and experiences that have influenced them.
For episode 3, the story comes a little closer to home. As French Bedroom celebrates its 20th birthday, Georgia is joined by Andréa Childs, Editor of Country Homes & Interiors, who are marking 40 years of their own. Together, they look back at where French Bedroom began, what continues to inspire Georgia today, and the story behind our Avenue d’Amour collection, created with Country Homes & Interiors to mark this very special year.
Clicking this thumbnail will play the video in an embedded player.
Episode Overview
Meet Andréa Childs
Joining Georgia this time is Andréa Childs, Editor of Country Homes & Interiors. For years, the magazine has celebrated homes filled with personality, craftsmanship, collected pieces, and a sense of history. This way of looking at interiors feels very familiar to us.
During their conversation, Georgia and Andréa talk about why the best homes tend to grow over time, how new furniture can sit happily alongside antiques and inherited treasures, and why rooms should always feel personal to the people living in them.
20 Years of French Bedroom
Before looking at where we are now, Georgia takes us back to 2006 and the rather simple idea that started French Bedroom. At the time, she was working in PR and knew she wanted to build a business of her own. She just didn’t know what that business would be. Then came her 30th birthday…
When her family asked what she wanted, Georgia had one answer: a classic French bed. Finding the one she had pictured proved much harder than expected, and a planned trip to France soon became something bigger. If Georgia was looking for this style of furniture and struggling to find it in the UK, surely other people were too.
French Bedroom began with £500 of savings and just three pieces: a bed, a chandelier, and a rug. When those sold, Georgia bought the next products, slowly building the collection and learning what our customers wanted to live with along the way. 20 years later, that original idea still sits at the heart of what we do.
“I started with £500 and an idea to bring French style beds to the UK. Twenty years later, I’m so proud of what I’ve achieved.”
Where Our Designs Begin
One of our favourite parts of the episode is hearing Georgia talk about where her ideas come from, and the answer is that they come from almost everywhere.
Architecture has always played a particularly important part. Georgia’s father is an architect, and she credits him with teaching her to notice the shapes, proportions, and small features within buildings that other people might walk straight past.
A Victorian stained glass window, a turret, a doorway, a museum painting, a fabric, or something spotted while travelling can all find their way into a design years later. As Georgia explains, creatives stitch ideas together from many different places.
Turning those ideas into furniture takes time. We work with makers whose individual expertise might lie in carving, painting, or the provenance of the wood, with designs passing through numerous versions before they feel just right.
Furniture for Real Life
Of course, furniture has to work for the room it lives in, not simply look good within it. Georgia and Andréa talk about some of the small practical decisions behind our designs. A chest of drawers needs to sit properly in front of a skirting board. Furniture should work alongside panelling, beams, and the architecture already within a room.
Even the Avenue d’Amour bed has a small ledge incorporated into its headboard, which Georgia points out is rather handy for your morning coffee, books, or trinkets. The conversation also turns to just how much our bedrooms now need to do.
They are no longer simply somewhere to sleep. They might be somewhere to work, dress, exercise, read, store our belongings, or spend a slow Sunday morning. Andréa calls the bedroom an “everything room”, and we quite liked that.
The Avenue d’Amour console can become a dressing table or desk. The armoire can hold clothes, linen, or all those things we would rather keep neatly behind closed doors. Even the chest of drawers has enough depth for a yoga mat.
Learning More About Country Homes & Interiors
Georgia takes the opportunity to learn a little more about the Country Homes & Interiors magazine itself and what has kept readers coming back for four decades.
With just 12 issues each year, Andréa explains that every edition is carefully considered. From the homes and makers they feature to the products, colours, and decorating ideas that make it onto the page, the focus is firmly on quality content that feels relevant, useful, and genuinely inspiring to its readers.
Georgia and Andréa also talk about the enduring pleasure of print. In a world of endless scrolling, a magazine offers a slower way to discover ideas - somewhere to pause over a room, notice the smaller details, and return to favourite pages. It is an approach that feels perfectly suited to country interiors too: personal, collected over time, and shaped by craftsmanship, character, and pieces made to last.
The Story Behind Avenue d’Amour
Avenue d’Amour feels particularly special to us because, in many ways, it takes us back to where French Bedroom began. The collection is a new interpretation of Georgia’s very first French Bedroom collection, reconsidered with 20 years of experience behind it. Georgia calls the original the “OG” and compares its evolution to a family recipe that becomes more refined each time it is made. The starting point remains familiar, but the colour, proportions, functionality, and finishes have evolved with the way we now live in our homes.
Created with Country Homes & Interiors, Avenue d’Amour brings together our love of French-inspired furniture with their appreciation for British country homes, craftsmanship, and interiors with character.
For us, it feels like 20 years of learning, designing, and listening to our customers poured back into one very special collection.
The Avenue d’Amour Collection
At the heart of Avenue d’Amour sit two beds, the Oatmeal French Bed and the Oatmeal Upholstered French Bed. Their shaped headboards take inspiration from grand doorways and classical architecture, while rounded corners, circular motifs, fluting, moulded surrounds, and tapered legs bring together references gathered from French and British design.
Around them sit Petite and Grande Bedside Tables, a Chest of Drawers, 2 Door Armoire, Console Table, Bedroom Chair, and Wall Mirror. Together, the nine pieces can create a complete bedroom, or be introduced individually into different rooms around the home.
The sandy, oatmeal finish was designed to change gently with the light around it. Warmer tones appear in south facing spaces, while north facing rooms bring out its softer, more muted side. Beneath the finish, solid wood frameworks and traditional furniture making techniques give the collection the substance we always look for in pieces designed to be lived with for years.
To learn more about the Avenue d’Amour Collection, read our blog.
Amour Desktop Vid - A series of softly styled bedroom scenes showcases French Bedroom’s floral and blue toile bed linen, alongside luxurious French beds and French-inspired bedroom furniture. Coordinating women’s nightwear complements the elegant styling. Women relax in luxury beds, enjoy a morning drink, and spend time together, capturing a calm, joyful and refined bedroom lifestyle centred around premium furniture and timeless French design.
Designed for Country Homes
One of the things we love most about country homes is that no two are quite the same. A cosy cottage bedroom asks something very different from its furniture than a larger Georgian room with higher ceilings and more generous proportions. That is why scale became such an important part of Avenue d’Amour.
The collection includes Petite and Grande bedside tables, while the beds are available in a wide choice of sizes, allowing the same design language to work across very different rooms. It is furniture inspired by the past, but created very much for the way we live now.
Georgia’s Feature in Country Homes & Interiors
Our conversation with Andréa also found its way into the pages of Country Homes & Interiors. Alongside Avenue d’Amour, the pages feature French Romance, Clair de Lune, and Love Story, offering a lovely snapshot of just how far we have come since that first bed, chandelier, and rug. It feels very fitting to celebrate our 20th year by looking back at where we began while also introducing a collection that represents where we are today.
Georgia’s Feature in Country Homes & Interiors Magazine. - Hand flipping through Country Homes & Interiors magazine featuring Georgia Metcalfe and French Bedroom.
Watch The Full Episode
From £500 and one French bed to 20 years of French Bedroom, episode 3 of In Bed With is a chance to look back at the ideas, people, places, and homes that have shaped us.
Georgia and Andréa talk creativity, craftsmanship, country interiors, building a business, and why the furniture we choose should become more meaningful the longer we live with it.
Settle in and watch the full episode of In Bed With: French Bedroom x Country Homes & Interiors.
