Middleway, London NW11

On a sunny day, this living room in Hampstead Garden Suburb is flooded with natural light and your eye is instantly drawn to the stunning view of greenery through the French doors.  Our client wanted to update the furniture, lighting, curtains & and soft furnishings in the room and re-decorate with new paint colours and possibly new wallpaper.  We also looked at updating the hallway & stairs with a new colour scheme and lighting.

Living Room

Initially we drew up the space in 3D and explored different furniture layouts but found that the space felt best when we kept the garden view as the focal point – that meant keeping the new sofas in the same orientation as before.  Our client also wanted help with how to best display various pieces of artwork she’d picked up on her travels; once we’d drawn up the space in 3D, we were able to virtually shuffle all the artworks on the walls and found that a mix of clusters and standalone pieces distributed across the walls worked best.

When redesigning a space, we look at all the furniture, lighting and accessories together.  In this way, we can look at balancing colours, patterns and textures throughout the different pieces we are suggesting.  For example, we suggested a small scale zigzag in pinks and purples as the curtain fabric because these warm tones contrast the green colour in the garden.  We introduced a large scale feature wallpaper by impressionist painter Jessica Zoob. This was chosen to complement the clients collection of Murano glassware, which is displayed on this wall.  The existing built in TV bench and glass cabinet door/drawer fronts were painted in a grey shade to complement the wallpaper and the bright colours around the room. The new sofas are upholstered in a neutral grey woven fabric, however we brought in colour and pattern through a mix of cushions – some of which the client already had and others which we had custom made.  The patterned chair in the corner was another great way to inject some personality and bold pattern & colour into the space.

The Design Process

Hallway & Stairs

Oftentimes, hallways and stairs can feel overlooked, appearing purely as a means to get from A to B, without any focal point or consideration to colour or pattern.  In this project, we spotted our client’s collection of coloured glassware in the living room and thought it would be great to complement this by adding a cluster of coloured glass pendant lights on the half-landing in front of the striking arched window. This proved to be a great way to add warmth and colour to an otherwise blank canvas.  As well as a new paint colour for the walls, we suggested a Farrow & Ball wallpaper on the staircase wall, thus introducing pattern in a neutral colour-way.

The Design Process