'Tastes are getting more flamboyant'

Peter Carroll/Bespoke furniture and interior designer, Fassbinder & English: Peter Carroll and his business partner Richard O'Toole combined their mothers' maiden names to come up with the name Fassbinder & English for their furniture and interior design enterprise.

After studying fine art in the College of Marketing and Design in the early 1990s, Peter worked as a mural artist and finisher. Much of his work centred on commercial interiors, taking an empty shell and coming up with a palette of colours to finish it. Six years ago he moved into domestic interiors; jobs naturally led to clients wanting their old furniture refurbished.

The partners used their skills of gold and silver leaf gilding, French polishing, boiserie and aged paintwork to makeover existing pieces. The next step was to work with cabinet-makers designing hand-made hardwood furniture to suit the larger proportions of Victorian and Georgian houses. Now they provide a full interior design and bespoke furniture service."Tastes are getting more flamboyant and the pale interiors are going out as people are getting into colour."