WOW!house 2025: The very best of what to see at the iconic interior design showcase

(Image credit: James McDonald / Wow!house)

published 13 June 2025

This year's WOW!house displays, oh so eloquently, the capacity of detail to elevate a space, from joinery and upholstery to furniture and finishes. It also offers an insight into how spatial planning is a far greater focus for designers than ever.

Here, both have been delivered with aplomb — a juggling act that distinguishes the most capable designers from the rest.

How to visit WOW!house

• Where WOW!house, Design Centre, Chelsea Harbour, London SW10

• When Monday–Saturday, June 3–July 3

• Entry Morning/lunchtime (10am–2pm) or afternoon (2pm–6pm), with arrival at any time during those hours. Final entry is recommended by 5pm

• Tickets Individual, £25; two tickets for £40 on weekdays (£35 on Saturdays); student tickets £10. A portion of each ticket price will be donated to charity partner United in Design

• To book Visit www.dcch.co.uk

What’s on show is more than a succession of rooms. Instead, they are spaces configured with enormous cunning, notably in the Sims Hilditch Courtyard Room that artfully combines beauty with all the functionality required by a busy family.

It’s not only floor space that has been deployed so deftly, but also height, from the monumental scale of ADAM Architecture’s grand entrance, designed by Darren Price, to the lofty lantern in Ben Pentreath Studio’s kitchen for Lopen Joinery.

Nor is the experience limited to interiors: there’s a seamless join between inside and out. Visitors are met with the imposing sight of the Artorius Faber Entrance Garden, in a variety of British stones with planting by Alexander Hoyle, and the McKinnon and Harris Garden Terrace offers visitors somewhere to cool their heels after the visual whirlwind.

There are other attractions, too, not least panel discussions featuring Alessandra Branca, Daniel Slowik, Nix Harding, Alex Dauley and Laura Hammett.

At 3pm on June 25, I will talk to Emma Sims-Hilditch, Rupert Cunningham of Ben Pentreath Studio and Jay Grierson of Martin Hulbert Design about creating beautiful spaces with high functionality.

Giles Kime is Country Life's Executive and Interiors Editor, an expert in interior design with decades of experience since starting his career at The World of Interiors magazine. Giles joined Country Life in 2016, introducing new weekly interiors features, bridging the gap between our coverage of architecture and gardening. He previously launched a design section in The Telegraph and spent over a decade at Homes & Gardens magazine (launched by Country Life's founder Edward Hudson in 1919). A regular host of events at London Craft Week, Focus, Decorex and the V&A, he has interviewed leading design figures, including Kit Kemp, Tricia Guild, Mary Fox Linton, Chester Jones, Barbara Barry and Lord Snowdon. He has written a number of books on interior design, property and wine, the most recent of which is on the legendary interior designer Nina Campbell who last year celebrated her fiftieth year in business. This Autumn sees the publication of his book on the work of the interior designer, Emma Sims-Hilditch. He has also written widely on wine and at 26, was the youngest ever editor of Decanter Magazine. Having spent ten years restoring an Arts & Crafts house on the banks of the Itchen, he and his wife, Kate, are breathing life into a 16th-century cottage near Alresford that has remained untouched for almost half a century.