My Happy Home: Presenter Charlotte Hawkins tells House Beautiful UK about growing up in an old vicarage, the decorating mishap that saw her paint a room six times, and the gardening job she does every Sunday.
From royal weddings and Olympic Games to the sparkle of Strictly Come Dancing, Charlotte Hawkins has enjoyed a broadcasting career as varied as it is high-profile.
A familiar face on ITV’s Good Morning Britain since helping to launch the show in 2014, she previously spent seven years presenting Sky News’ Sunrise alongside Eamonn Holmes and made her News at Ten debut in April. This summer, she is adding Channel 5 to her busy schedule, stepping in as guest host on the Matt Allwright show and Jeremy Vine, while remaining firmly part of the GMB team.
Away from news, Charlotte, 51, indulges her lifelong love of classical music on Classic FM and hosts annual cinema broadcasts of André Rieu’s spectacular Maastricht concerts.
A devoted dog lover, she also presents the podcast Leaps & Hounds and is an ambassador for Dogs Trust.
Charlotte lives in Surrey with her husband Mark, their 11-year-old daughter Ella Rose and dog Moose.
What does home mean to you?
CH: We’ve lived in our home in Surrey for 16 years, and it’s my haven, my sanctuary, the place where I can retreat to. It’s very special, and with it being the family hub, it’s a bit of escapism from the world.
What was your childhood home like?
CH: We lived in a big, rambling old vicarage in Sidlesham, near Chichester. It was an amazing place to live with a big garden, which was brilliant for adventure, but it had an oil heating system so it was freezing in the winter.
We had the church fête every year in the field next to our house and they always got a celebrity or someone well-known to open it. It was always, ‘Who’s it going to be this year?’. A few years ago, they invited me!
It was a really emotional and poignant thing because I still know quite a few people there. I thought, ‘Eight-year-old me would have had her mind blown if someone had said one day she’d be back to do such an important job.’
Kirstin Sinclair//Getty Images
Charlotte at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show
What’s your dinner-party style?
CH: I love entertaining and always like to make it a special occasion. Mark and I plan in advance, whether it’s cocktails, starters, canapés or snacks. Luckily, Mark quite often does the main meal part, so we divide and conquer.
I like to make a choice of desserts and our daughter Ella Rose loves making them too, sometimes no-cook desserts or air-fryer desserts. Between us, we usually create a dessert platter. That’s definitely the way to go!
What’s the first thing you do when you get home?
CH: I kick my shoes off and get changed because quite often I’ll have been wearing a dress and high heels. At whatever event I’ve been to, I’m always thinking, ‘I cannot wait to get home and put my comfies on!’
In the winter, it will be a big pair of fluffy socks and some jogging bottoms. In the summer, it’s shorts and a T-shirt. Then I feel, ‘I’m me now. I’m at home. I’m off duty.’
Kirstin Sinclair//Getty Images
Charlotte presenting at Royal Ascot alongside Mark Heyes
Do you have a favourite room at home?
CH: We have an L-shaped room that’s a kitchen that leads into the lounge and then into the dining room. There aren’t any doors in between, so it counts as one. I love the fact that it all flows into each other. It’s the main hub of the house, where everyone congregates. When you’ve got people over, people want to grab a drink and chat to you while you’re cooking.
Our home has been a labour of love over the years. We bust the budget buying it and have done bits to it as we’ve gone along. The first bit involved knocking some walls down inside. Then we did an upstairs extension before what we call an orangery, where there is a lemon tree but no oranges.
We’ve ended up moving doors and walls around and using it quite differently to how we first thought we would.
What’s on your bedside table?
CH: A lot of lotions and potions. I leave them there thinking, ‘I’ll put that cream on tonight,’ and inevitably I’m so tired that I just pass out!
I have an alarm clock and a phone charger because, when I get up early in the morning – 3am when I’m on Good Morning Britain – I have my phone alarm and a separate, battery-powered one as well, just in case there’s a power cut!
Do you have a favourite homeware store?
CH: If I need home accessories, I look at places like Rockett St George. I like quirky things; for example, I’ve got a gold pineapple in my fruit bowl (below). I like things that I look at and think, ‘That’s a little bit different.’
Quite often I go to reclamation or vintage home places like Packhouse Antiques in Farnham. It’s full of all sorts of hidden gems.
Charlotte Hawkins
What’s the biggest extravagance in your home?
During Covid, when travel plans were put on hold, we put aside the holiday fund and built a Breeze House dining hut in the garden to create a holiday-at-home vibe (below).
It’s got a tiled roof and canvas sides, which you can roll up. There’s a little dining room table and seating area. I love that outside-in feeling and tucking myself in there, sometimes with my laptop to do some writing or take conference calls.
Charlotte Hawkins
And the biggest bargain?
CH: My grandma and grandpa’s wooden trunk with metal handles. I painted it with chalk paint and waxed it, so it was shabby chic. I’m into repurposing bits of furniture and painting them a different colour to give them another life.
The trunk was a big part of our lives when we went down to stay on my grandparents’ farm in Devon. I inherited it when they downsized and moved to a bungalow. I love having things like that that you can pass down through the generations.
We’ve also got a Welsh-dresser-style sideboard that the previous owners of our house left us. I painted that shabby-chic grey too and it’s one of my favourite pieces of furniture in the house. You can make a massive difference to something just by giving it a coat of paint.
Is there another object you love that you’ve brought back from your travels?
CH: A gold palm leaf lamp, which I bought in a sale for €30 when I was hosting one of André’s concerts in Maastricht (below). I thought, ‘This is quite a bold purchase!’ The plug was obviously wrong and needed an adapter, but I kept my fingers crossed that it was going to look okay, and it did! It’s now in the dining room. I like having something different in the house that tells a story.
Charlotte Hawkins
Do you have a decorating style?
CH: Every room is different. I try to zone it a little bit but keep it quite simple. I do a lot of the painting and take a lot of the decisions myself.
I’ve completely colour-drenched the snug in a dark, midnight grey-blue – the walls, the panelling and the skirting boards – so it feels like you’re stepping into somewhere really luxurious.
I usually get a Dulux-mixed paint and get them to mix it up for me. Neptune paints are really good too. I used that on the utility room cupboards, the kitchen cupboards, front door, gate and summer house.
Have you ever had a decorating disaster?
CH: The first house we bought was an old Victorian house in Teddington. It had woodchip wallpaper that’s really hard to get off. We spent ages chiselling it off, got it back to bare plaster, I did two coats of undercoat, then two coats of what I hoped was going to be a soft stone colour. In the end, it looked exactly like bare plaster, so after four coats it looked exactly the same as when I first started.
I then had to do another two or three coats in a different colour. Honestly, I was so sick of that room by the end because I’d painted it six times! It nearly broke me.
At the moment, I’m painting our stairs and bannisters dark grey. I’m halfway through and there’s a lot of tape. I don’t know when I’ll get it finished, but I won’t get anyone in to finish the job because if they don’t do it as well as I could have, I’d get upset. I actually find painting really therapeutic.
Is there a design trend you would never follow?
CH: I have a lot of stuff, so I definitely couldn’t do the whole minimalist thing. My husband always wants to do a pop of colour. He’ll say, ‘Let’s have a jalapeño-coloured oven,’ and I’m like, ‘No!’ I like colours that coordinate.
What do you collect?
CH: I used to collect corks. One of my brothers gave me a ginormous bottle, which I started filling with corks, but then I got to the stage where I thought, ‘What am I going to do with all these corks?’ I’ve got a friend who is gluing corks to a wall as a way to remember all the bottles he’s ever drunk!
Ella Rose’s artwork also takes pride of place in our house and I’ve got lots of plants to try to give the house a tropical vibe (both below). It feels like they’re the lungs of the house, filtering the air and doing good.
Charlotte Hawkins
Charlotte Hawkins
Is there a housewarming gift you love to give or receive?
CH: I tend not to give flowers anymore because they only live a few days but I give a plant instead because it lasts. Roses have all sorts of different names now, so I often try to match up a rose to a friend, whether it’s their name, a sentiment, or a big birthday they’re celebrating. Hopefully, if it survives, they can look at it year after year.
Whose home would you love to have a nose around?
CH: One of the royals’. I went to St James’s Palace recently and I was mesmerised. I went to the loo and, of course, you get to go behind the scenes. I saw all the family photos on the mantelpieces.
I was fascinated because there’s often a mix of the traditional — antique pieces they’ve had for generations — and a few modern upgrades. You get the feeling that nothing has changed in that house for years and years.
Dave J Hogan//Getty Images
Charlotte and the Good Morning Britain team collecting the award for Multi-Channel News during the TRIC Awards 2022 at Grosvenor House
Would you describe yourself as green-fingered?
CH: Usually. I love getting out in the garden. It’s that bit of escapism. Sometimes it does get stressful because you think, ‘I had a plant there and now it’s gone. It’s died.’ You feel very responsible for these small green shoots that then don’t appear again!
I planted a whole bed of baby spinach, then Mark looked at it and said, ‘I can’t tell what’s baby spinach and what’s a weed.’ I was worried that we’d be eating weeds, so we haven’t tried any of the baby spinach leaves yet!
What’s outside your window right now?
CH: My red robin, which I absolutely love. It’s the best evergreen ever when it’s got those red tips of colour coming through.
Photinia × Fraseri Red Robin
Photinia × Fraseri Red RobinCredit: primrose.co.ukEvery Sunday, where will we find you?
CH: In the garden doing jobs. We have the garden waste bins and I make it my mission to cram as much garden waste as I can into them. I get very disappointed if I have to leave them out and they’re not completely full to bursting. That’s the measure of my hard work.
Right now, what are you looking forward to?
CH: Hosting André Rieu’s concert in Maastricht. This is the 20th year that André has performed his summer concerts on the big square in the middle of Maastricht, his hometown.
It’s going to be super-special and the 15th year that I’ve worked with André. Every year he puts so much effort into it being an amazing concert for everyone to love and enjoy. This year he’s got pieces from My Fair Lady, Les Misérables and The Blue Danube but he always likes to throw in a few surprises. I have no doubt everyone will be up and dancing, singing along and enjoying themselves.
At the end of each show, everybody goes into the venue where there’s wine and snacks and we all sit and chat until sometimes 2 am!
André Rieu’s 2026 Maastricht Concert – Viva Maastricht! is in more than 600 cinemas nationwide on the 8th and 9th August. Tickets are on sale now at andreincinemas.com
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