Exceptional home design for a couple’s collection

Our clients moved back to London after 15 years spent in Connecticut and brought with them two containers of books, paintings, and family heirlooms. They did not bring furniture, as the pieces that they acquired for their sprawling home in America would not suit their new Victorian house in Notting Hill.

Editing the Beautiful Mess

We love clients with eclectic tastes, artistic infatuations, and tons of books. We're very good at helping them edit their beautiful mess.

The house needed a whole new layout, which required structural changes. It also needed painstaking work to restore many missing Victorian features.

Reworking the structure of a Victorian home to suit modern life—and a lifetime of treasures.

Once the clients agreed to the architectural design and we had submitted the planning application, our attention went to the interior design. This included studies of lighting and colour, the design of all the built-in joinery and the selection of new furniture. We also found the best placement for our clients' art and for the pieces of furniture they inherited from both their English and South African families.

We designed the private garden as an external room and collaborated with a gardener on its planting scheme.

Thoughtful details, bespoke craftsmanship, and a quiet confidence that lets the client's story shine.

The project is a labour of love. It's an orchestration between the clients, the contractor, and a team of specialists, all directed by the designers. It involved artists and artisans who have designed and manufactured bespoke pieces.

Mixing new furniture with the clients’ art collection and family heirlooms, and a few artists' pieces designed specifically for the house, result in personal and unique spaces. "It's as though no interior designer had been involved," a friend of the family commented.

We take that as the ultimate compliment!

This project has been featured in both national and local press. House and Garden included it in an issue about "Five exceptional houses." The Resident London Magazine described it as rich in “fresh ideas that sit seamlessly within the period property, providing a design narrative that spans decades”.

Read the full features here.