IN CONVERSATION WITH OWNER HELEN GRUNDY-SMITH

Having worked aboard super yachts since the age of 18, Helen Grundy-Smith started her career as a stewardess and quickly began to specialise in VIP-level housekeeping.

“I’ve always loved tidying, but more than that – I love organising homes, and decorating them to look beautiful.”

Follow our journey on Instagram.

Time for change

To Helen, home is of the utmost importance, and after 12 years on the water, she made the decision to step back permanently onto dry land, where she changed direction and began training private staff and butlers with her unique eye for detail.

Passing on her instincts for delivering the same level of VIP experience that her sea-going guests had come to expect, this new direction led her to meet and build relationships with a number of interior designers, and before long, she started to dream of a new challenge.



Purchasing Cotton Mills

With the goal of running her own interiors business at the front of her mind, Helen undertook training at the Interior Design Institute, where she learned to hone her instincts and build on her existing skills in order to deliver the VIP experience to luxury home improvers.

Then, in August 2022, she made her move: purchasing the Cotton Mills Design House in Truro. Bringing to the business her keen eye for detail and her love for soft furnishings made from beautiful fabrics, Helen, since taking it on, has also brought a sharp focus on sustainability, concentrating on eco-friendly, sustainably made materials. 

Eco-conscious suppliers

“It’s really important to me that we do our research on our suppliers, and that we take every step necessary to ensure that the fibres used to create a fabric are ethically sourced. Sustainability is an extremely difficult balance to strike with textiles, especially because the process is so long and intensive and often involves the use of harsh chemicals. But strike we must!"

Timeless design

“I come from a family of vegetarians,” explains Helen, “and have grown up recycling and composting everything that we can. Sustainability, therefore, is very close to my heart, which is why at Cotton Mills we are already seeing the curation of products to our lines that are sustainably made with amazing eco-credentials.”

This dovetails nicely with Helen’s belief that interior design should be timeless, and that the pieces used to bring it together should not only be built sustainably, but also made to last. “This is what we aspire to at Cotton Mills,” says Helen.

“Everything that we do is geared towards curating dream homes for our clients that they will love to spend time in, and not just until the current trends wear thin.” 

Cornish craftspeople

As with any successful business, this starts at the top! Thankfully, Helen’s eye for clean, carefully curated home furnishings and lifestyle pieces is unmatched, and her belief in the quality of our local craftspeople fits beautifully with this.

All of our contractors here at Cotton Mills Design House are based in Cornwall. Providing our clients with bespoke cabinetry, furniture and woodwork, they cover everything from one-of-a-kind coffee tables, to fully bespoke kitchens, all drawing on the finest, most sustainably sourced materials available. 

One-to-one service

“The first thing to do,” says Helen to anybody considering an interior revamp, “is to send us an enquiry – either over the phone, online, or by popping into our Truro store and speaking to us in person.

From there, we can arrange a one-to-one appointment for you with our team of designers and consultants, who will be able to ascertain what you have in your mind’s eye and take care of all of the details.”

Achieving your vision

This, says Helen, can be done in the team’s studio, on site, or even virtually. “It can be as specific or as vague as you like. The ultimate goal is to ensure that colours, materials, design, even floor plans – for full house re-designs – all work together to achieve your vision.

We’ll create personalised mood and sample boards for you to review to accept, and once you’re happy, we’ll get to work ordering the materials and sending them to our workrooms (all in Cornwall) with the necessary measurements. Once the products have been made and sent back to the studio, it’s time for Clive, our amazing fitter, to start pulling it all together. “He really does make everything perfect, and his meticulous standards are unmatched.”

Head over to Houzz

Of course, we couldn’t expect you to simply take our word for it. Instead, why not head over to our page on Houzz?

The wealth of five-star reviews that you’ll find there are testament to the service we continue to provide – of creating beautiful, liveable spaces for homeowners in Cornwall – and now that Helen has taken the helm, we cannot wait to continue our work with clients who share our passion for design that is beautiful, thoughtful, and sustainable. 

If you would like to book a personal interior consultation, you can do so here.