I’m stalking a late-Victorian townhouse on North London’s Ospringe Road, a short walk from Tufnell Park and Kentish Town. Spread over five storeys the home is packed with charm and character. Crafted from London stock brick and crowned with steep Welsh slate roofs with tall chimney stacks, it exudes timeless elegance. The interior spaces have been refurbished to an exceptionally high standard, carefully preserving historic features such as fine plasterwork and an elegant, sculptural staircase. My favourite though is the blue reading room (painted in ‘Vardo’ by Farrow and Ball). Just perfect for a bibliophile in you.
Ospringe Road II for sale via Inigo.
I love taking a peek into designers’ homes. Always so inspiring to see what they create when they are their own client with no constraints except in this case there is one. The house is a rental. That didn’t stop Sophie Ashby of Studio Ashby. Her family home is packed with colour and personality, an eclectic mix of old and new.
Photography by Philip Durrant.
If I were to have a cottage in a place like Martha’s Vineyard, I would want it to be decorated exactly like this. Especially that yellow kitchen. Such a charming and incredibly inviting home that I bet allows for the most epic granny naps and games nights. Historic preservation + deep energy retrofit + interior design by Cuppett Kilpatrick.
Our obsession with faux flowers, botanicals and plants is where it all started. But a beautiful bouquet needs a great side table. A kitchen needs a statement plant. A reception desk needs a stunning arrangement… And so one side of our business feeds the other. Led by Tracy Cole, we work closely with our clients to create cosy modern interiors full of texture, layers and luxury with lots of faux details.
Such wonderfully cheerful colours used in these spaces (especially the first few photos!) designed by UK based interior design, event and botanical styling firm Hello Flora.
“Put simply, the brief was for a down-size apartment for a client transitioning from a large house and garden which came with a lifetime of carefully and intelligently collected art and furniture … The nexus of a decorative late-modernist building, definitive spatial planning and a desire to make a setting for art, objects and furniture came together in a particular way. Materiality, texture, surface and colour draw on the tertiary hues of late modernism and the luxurious intensity of a design movement at its hedonistic zenith – an approach epitomized by the extensive use of that most bourgeois of tones – beige. Enfilade planning opens up the interior and de-limits horizontal space, a progression which is enlivened through intense but purposefully muted colour and texture at the entry and in the snug. And finally, the impact of precious objects is heightened through designation of specific places – plinths, platforms and ledges, but also through an elevated entourage of grasscloth, raw linen, limed oak and polished plaster.
This apartment is civilized in the very best sense, it is not vulgar luxury, rather it reflects a thoughtful and cultivated approach to living beautifully and well.”
Re-imagining a small apartment in Melbourne’s iconic late-modernist apartment building Fairlie by Kennedy Nolan. Part Wunderkammer part inner city luxury pad all fabulous.
Photography by Derek Swalwell.