About us
Charles of Oxford is a small decorating firm working on period and high-value homes across Oxfordshire and the Cotswolds.
It is deliberately small. There are two of us on the tools, and we are brothers — which means the same two faces arrive each morning, you are not meeting a new subcontractor every week, and there is never any question about who is in your house. Charles is your point of contact from the first visit through to the final inspection.
Where the standard comes from
Charles began his career as a carpenter, working on projects where the tolerance for error was effectively nil — among them the Marchmont estate in Scotland, and a number of Michelin-starred restaurants and fine dining rooms in London. Since then the work has been on hotels, private residences and country houses across the Cotswolds.
Roughly a decade of that work, all of it on high-value property, teaches you a particular habit: you finish things properly because somebody is going to look closely, and because doing it twice is not an option. That habit is what we brought to decorating.
What that means in practice
It means preparation is treated as the work rather than the tedious part before the work — cracks raked out and filled rather than skimmed over, failed plaster cut back and made good, every repair primed before a topcoat goes near it.
It means we tell you when something is a bad idea before you have paid for it. If a modern paint will trap moisture in a solid wall, or a kitchen is not worth painting, you will hear that at the quotation stage rather than afterwards.
And it means that when we leave your house at the end of the day it looks like a home rather than a building site. Floors and furniture are protected before anything begins, the site is swept and left tidy every evening, and nobody smokes or vapes anywhere on your property.
We are fully insured. Quotations are given in writing after we have seen the property, and the visit and the quotation are free.
The kind of work we want
Old houses, done properly. Cotswold stone cottages and farmhouses, Georgian townhouses and rectories, Victorian villas, listed buildings — and the modern extensions and garden rooms attached to them, which deserve the same care.
We are happy taking on a single room and we would rather do that well than take on a house we cannot do justice to. A good deal of our work begins as one room and grows from there.
Get in touch
Arrange a quote · 07833 053763 · info@charlesofoxford.com