Very often the home you want is hidden inside the home you have.  During the brief I look at your space, your existing style, the room available and what you want to achieve.  I assess the light, both quantity and quality and the flow of how you want to use your home. Who uses the space, their ages and how they want to use the space is important too, as well as the existing furnishings that you wish to keep, colour preferences and your overall budget.  Very often my clients are locked in to seeing the limitations of how their home looks at the moment – my job is to help them see how it could look in the future …

This room started as an upstairs spare room which had become a dumping ground for books, records and spare furniture.  Ann and Lee wanted a calm, uncluttered space for them to relax in and listen to music and read.

The room had no focal point, no storage and a generally forlorn look. The chimney breast had an inset space for a previous fireplace which was filled with clutter.

The starting point for the design was this picture which formed the basis for the colour palette.  These colours featured heavily in the rest of the house ensuring the new room would sit quite happily in Ann and Lee’s home.

A curved sofa was added, new carpets, an arched light for reading, a glass table to show off a carved wooden bowl the client already had, plus super plush cushions, wallpaper, curtains and a fireplace to give the space a focal point. Two floor to ceiling wardrobes hid the clutter, leaving a quiet, relaxed space for Ann and Lee to enjoy their pastimes in.

Pamela had lived in her one bedroom apartment for seven years and had never had guests over.  There was no dining table for meals or entertaining and the furnishings were exactly as they had been when she moved in.

Apart from the double bed, there was very little space in the bedroom so each piece of furniture would have to have double uses if possible and the design would need to be simple but elegant to match Pamela’s personality and lifestyle.

We chose a modern take on art deco as the clean lines, reflective finishes and patterned flourishes would help lift the light and not overwhelm the space.  The colour palette was a mix of warm ochre, rich plum, cerise highlights and plenty of deep notes of walnut to give the design some depth.

The buttoned velvet headboard, silk strand wallpaper laid on the vertical, vertical patterned curtains and vertical blinds in a matching colour to the walls gave texture and a vertical lift to the ceiling, making the room feel airier and larger than its footprint, whilst plush cushions and a faux leopord throw as a bed runner gave a little bit of rock n roll and added texture to the design.

This house had beautiful Edwardian features but no obvious purpose or style to each room.  The furnishings were tired and the original parquet floor was in dire need of some intensive tlc.

Jonathan had no idea how he wanted his home to look so we searched around for inspiration and found it in his music collection and the Edwardian style of the house.  Jonathan’s teenage children helped select the wallpaper and this gave the design a baseline from which to work.

The rooms were defined as to purpose, and fabrics were chosen that would stand up well to the flock zebra wallpaper whilst not competing with it.  It is important to ensure that if you choose a strong central element to the design, that other items complement it rather than compete with it so that the overall effect is effortless rather than combative.

The claret feature chair is in a ribbed velvet, whilst the bespoke rug was made to order and colour matched to the chair with the design picking up the wallpaper.  The curtains and sofas were in a soft velvet but kept plain so that there would be a restful backdrop to the wallpaper.  Glass wall lights, a central Art Deco chandelier and an oval glass table gave that additional glamour that is so distinctive of Art Deco at its best.