Jessica Jonzen is the Co-Founder of digital homes and lifestyle magazine The Home Page, and creative content consultancy Studio Home Page. In the summer of 2023, she moved into a converted barn with a stellar musical history and set about updating it for its next chapter. We caught up with her to find out more and why she chose Alternative for her flooring.
Can you tell us about your background and how the idea for starting The Home Page came about?
I’m a journalist and editor and worked at The Sunday Times, Net-a-Porter and Matches before I met Rosalind Sack when we were working on a regional glossy lifestyle magazine together. We both felt that there was as so much more to say about homes and interiors than just writing about the latest colour and furniture trends. Your home is the backdrop to some of life’s biggest moments, and as journalists we felt that there were so many stories to be told about people’s homes.
That’s where the idea for creating our own digital magazine, The Home Page, came from and we launched it in 2019. We’ve featured some incredible people and their homes, including Louise Roe, Farrow & Ball’s Joa Studholme and Paddy O’Donnell, Pearl Lowe, Skye Gyngell and many more. We recently launched our members’ club The Staying In Crowd so we can offer our paid members even more content, as well as special perks and benefits, so that’s been a lovely development.
You also launched a consultancy arm, Studio Home Page, can you tell us more about that?
We found that many of the brands we featured appreciated our writing style, aesthetic and deep understanding of the design world and wanted to know if we could help them with their own storytelling. This developed into us launching Studio Home Page.
As a creative content consultancy, we help interior and lifestyle brands with every element of their communications, from website copywriting and editorial-style blog posts, through to newsletters and social media. There’s a great synergy between the two sides of our business, and being immersed in the interiors and lifestyle world through our magazine we have a unique insight into our clients’ needs.
How would you describe your home and your interior style?
We live in a 200-year-old converted brick and flint barn, which used to be Oasis’s recording studio. They recorded two of their later albums there, and some incredible musicians have recorded in our house, including George Harrison, Paul Weller, and Robbie Williams… if these walls could talk! The studio was converted into a house in 2013, and when we moved in last summer, we didn’t think there was any sign of its musical past until we found an ‘Oasis’ stencil above the back door. That’s definitely staying!
I would describe my interior style as ‘Scandish’. That aesthetic of soft Gustavian tones which maximize natural light really appeals to me and is a subconscious thread running through my home. It blends in very well with the quite traditional English style which I also love. My husband and I have two children, aged 13 and 10, and a Labrador so it’s very much a lived-in family home and I’m not precious about anything (apart from our dog not being allowed upstairs!)
Where do you find inspiration when it comes to interior design?
Working on The Home Page and with our Studio Home Page clients, I’m surrounded by interior design inspiration daily. The designers whose style I really admire are HÁM Interiors, Laura Stephens and Nicola Harding; I love their use of colour and art.
Why did you choose Alternative for your home?
I knew I wanted natural flooring for our home, and I really liked the breadth of Alternative’s selection. The advice on the website and the sampling service were also helpful when it came to our decision-making.
Why Sisal and Wool flooring?
When we moved in, the sitting room had a rather dated faux wood laminate, which didn’t suit the style of the house, and I couldn’t wait to replace it! I chose the Sisal Panama carpet in Penwood as I love the texture of it and the colour goes with absolutely everything. It’s also robust while still feeling cosy. I was concerned about the risk of spills with sisal so opted to have the Intec Stain Inhibitor added to our carpet.
We wanted something softer for the bedrooms and landing so we chose the Wool Berber carpet in Buru. As it is 100% wool, it has a gorgeous texture, deep loop and lovely warm tones. It has a similar textured appearance to sisal but it feels wonderfully soft underfoot. The tiny little flecks of brown in it also make it very forgiving! Both carpets have completely transformed the house.
Tell us about your carpet fitting experience and is buying local important to you?
Alternative Flooring found us a local fitter, Richfield Flooring who were incredibly helpful. Callum came to measure up and was able to share his advice about our carpet choices and whether they would work with the room sizes. He also answered my (many!) follow-up questions promptly. Our fitter, Will, was polite, friendly and really knew his stuff and fitting the carpets in the sitting room, the landing and three bedrooms took him two days. It was a very positive experience and I enjoyed working with a local business, rather than an anonymous centralised fitting service.
What’s next for you?
Tackling my garden! It was a bit of a jungle when we moved in, so I’m working hard at the weekends to get it looking lovely for the summer. With The Home Page, we are focusing on growing our memberships for The Staying In Crowd and creating more wonderful content for our subscribers. And on the Studio Home Page front, we are working on some lovely creative content projects for our clients and are looking to expand into more strategic brand work for new clients. It’s an exciting time.
Photography by: Wendy Aldiss
