Queens Park
This is a large, imposing Victorian house situated on a leafy street in North West London. The brief was to make the house feel more luxurious and to feel bright and more polished. The result was a warm, eclectic and impressive home, and a succession of really good entertaining spaces for family and friends.
Kitchen & Living Room:
I started with adding cornice and some proper architraves and reveals in order to make the bones of the house feel more in-keeping with how it should be. We kept the kitchen units and worktop and just updated the London Clay colour. I wanted the dated wooden larder to read more as a found piece and so I commissioned a specialist painter to create a French housekeeper’s cupboard look. It keeps it bright and breaks up the units. I was also mindful of the sheer volume of space available here and how we needed to mark the spaces. I bought a huge (1m diameter) light from Visual Comfort to hang above the island. I brought pattern in to the new blinds in order to keep your eye away from the view of the fence outside: blinds fabric was Paolo Moschino and the patterned fan mirrored the feel of the central light and sat snugly under the new decorative cornice.
Colours in the main room were to be light but warm. I used Milk White from Edward Bulmer which is just the best neutral/ off white for a space like this. Once painted on the cornice it somehow aged it in a very warm way too. Love this colour.
We upscaled an old green bookcase - I had it painted and then designed Berber markings for my specialist painter to decorate the sides. This now sits as a bookcase and drinks cabinet between Kitchen & Living Room.
Bar stools are Soho Home: when it comes to bar stools they know their thing.
Living Room:
I designed and made the yellow sofa with loose cover in a really good, difficult to find yellow linen. Robert Kime fabric was chosen for the ottoman which I repeated in the Sitting Room. We re-covered the pair of chairs by the fire with some Romo fabric and Pierre Frey trim. Brass floor lamps complete the look and a mirrored sideboard allows the eye to continue when looking from the Dining Room. The rug is Berber style from Peter Page and brightens the space.
I needed to separate off the hall without adding solid doors. I did this with double sided curtains. Decorative Tissus D’Helen fabric with red stripe trim Hall-side and a warm Turnell and Gigon ochre linen facing the kitchen. I used the left over brass chains from the Dining Room pendants to make up some tie backs and they work really well.
Dining Room:
This was an issue. On a cold wintery day in London it can feel a little sparse and you look out to a muddy garden – it needed to be warmed up. I commissioned the whole room to be clad in oak. It was taking inspiration from a good friend’s house in the Cotswolds and it makes for a wonderfully soft and warm effect. It’s also a little different from the usual treatment of an extension and I didn’t want to do something expected. The central lights tie in with the Kitchen and give a lovely warm glow at night. The huge area rug here is from Vaughan and the stripes mirror the lines of the cladding. The Berber style of it ties in nicely with the Peter Page rug in the Living Room but doesn’t match.
Entrance Hall:
Small patterned paper by Neisha Crosland for George Spencer. This was a huge success - really warm and unusual.
I designed and commissioned the sideboard to hide an electrics meter and to house an invisible drawer and two cupboards. We needed something to offset the more decorative hall curtains and this works brilliantly. It’s based on a door design from Peter Mikic. It’s very tactile and is one of my favourite pieces. We wallpapered this area and then brought large pieces of the unfinished fronts of the unit to site and chose between about 15 different stains to get the colour right. I wanted to see the grain but not for it to smudge into the lines with too much stain. It also couldn’t clash with the paper. Think we got it spot on.
Sitting Room:
This was a tricky room. North facing with low blinds to hide from passers by outside, it needed lots of help. I kept the oversized light I designed years ago – Robert Kime fabric and refreshed the ottoman to match - and then designed and commissioned a huge bespoke Catalan mirror to sit above the fireplace and open up the space. The mirror has another layer of hand blown glass on top all the way from Venice in order to give it the desired wobble of an antique piece.
I wanted this room to feel like a grand sitting room in an eccentric country house. I used an over-the-top patterned wallpaper with huge repeat from Lewis and Wood and the wonderful trim that comes with it pulls your eye to the cornice and makes the door appear more decorative. The carpet is from Tim Page and I reupholstered the existing brown sofas in V&A Threads velvet and Pierre Frey velvet. The gold floor lamps and little martini tables keep it light and the curtains are plain Lewis and Wood linen in a Hunter and Hyland internally corded pole.
Upstairs to Yellow Bathroom
This was another problem room initially. It was dark and dingy and looked onto next door’s window. It needed colour. I took inspiration from Aqua Di Parma packaging and created a bathroom to match. The dark wenge flooring works really well and the striped London blinds I commissioned were by Paolo Moschino.
Master Bedroom
A beautiful dark wood four poster bed set against and new off white carpet and Vivienne Westwood wallpaper. Huge dramatic curtains with trim from George Spencer and tie backs to match. Pole from Tilly’s
First and Loft floors
A red striped runner leads up to the bedrooms and Office with open ceiling into the eaves clad in Robert Kime wallpaper and the Games Room on the top floor with a wonderful blue, textile look wallpaper from Elitis.
