Wild Isle Style: Resourceful And Sustainable Interior Design Ideas

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In the middle of every project, everyone around Banjo is very gently tired of his faffy decision-making and the fact that his practical skills are next to zero. After eight weeks of decisions, dramas and driving thousands of miles to secure those very special reclaimed and second-hand items to make his super-stylish schemes stand out, Australian-born cheesemaker, marketeer and stylist Banjo Beale, 35, who lives with his partner Ro on the Isle of Mull, Scotland, has been crowned the winner of Interior Design Masters 2022. Playwright David Greig explained how his walk to Iona, although unplanned, had inspired his first novel.

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Originally from Australia, he now resides on the Isle of Mull in Scotland, where he lives with his partner and dog. The series is part of the BBC’s co-commission strategy to increase portrayal, delivering high quality content from across the UK.

Elegant, understated and so impressive, the bar's owner has now asked Banjo to restyle his own apartment. Also on the agenda for the interiors pro is his book, Wild Isle Style: Resourceful, Original and Inventive Design Ideas, which is due out in October.

About Banjo Beale

Thankfully, some brave locals are handing me the keys to their places, from a bothy two hours walk from the nearest road to a remote lighthouse, castle turret and beloved community rugby club. With sustainability and budget in mind, he combines vintage finds with clever design and repurposes the old, reimagining it into something new. Doing the winner's project, [to transform a self-catering beach retreat in Watergate Bay in Cornwall], taught me a lot.

In a way it’s a nice vehicle to highlight what it’s like living on an island, that it comes with challenges but in those challenges that’s when you realise how resourceful and knacky people are, you don’t throw anything away, you keep it for a rainy day.

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I thought it would be really hard because I have empathy for anyone that throws themselves open to judging. He’s not: he’s actually quite gentle and mild and flustered, with a great line in amusing self-denigration, and bustles about on his little jobs as if the cameras aren’t really there. A storyteller, wily stylist and space creator, Banjo weaves a little bit of magic into everything he touches, from sourcing vintage furniture and objects to creating char acterful interior design schemes.If this was all a psy-op to make me pack it all in and move to the Isle of Mull and re-train as someone who can do something with their hands, by the way, it’s working. The Glass Barn is a playground of curios and collections and a constant canvas and it was here that Banjo learned the art of reimagining whatever was at hand, into something useful or unusual.

BBC Two - Designing the Hebrides - Episode guide BBC Two - Designing the Hebrides - Episode guide

Audiences had a chance to mingle and meet the authors over a mouth-watering lunch provided by the Ulva Boathouse, and two delicious dinners at the Western Isles Hotel, which hosted events alongside An Tobar.A lot of it was using what I could get my hands on for free and using local people, craftsmen, and artisans. There are, for reasons that cannot be explained, often just scenes of him having a non-sequitur conversation with his husband, who is always muddling with a large block of cheese. Fast forward and Ro is a big cheese, managing the the production of the award winning Isle of Mull cheese and helping the family create a distillery, turning leftover whey into spirit. But there is a definite pace that things move on an island, which means that you get to enjoy the smaller things. So fuzzy-sided, warm-hearted television that has absolutely no scenes where someone’s head explodes very rarely does it for me.