Kensington

I’ve known this house near Kensington Gardens for many years, as it is the home of my childhood friend Patrick, and I imagined it had been patiently waiting for me to return and shower it with love. It has beautiful Georgian reception rooms that stretch from the street to the garden, one opening onto the next. A well-proportioned fireplace distinguishes each of these rooms and they are hung with a pair of 19th-century crystal chandeliers. Sometimes existing architectural elements can be a nuisance, but not when you’re dealing with a house whose original features are all intact. All it needed was my trademark dashes of color and quirk to revive its excellent 18th-century bones. 

I was lucky enough to find an old Howard sofa at my upholsterers, and asked them to reupholster it. As luck would have it, my warehouse had mistakenly sent double quantities of Otis Textiles Mohair for a project, which turned out to be very handy. Howard & Sons sofas, like AGA cookers, are quintessentially British and are becoming more difficult to come by. (They’re so good, no one parts with them.) Not only did my new/old sofa anchor the room but it also became the source of inspiration for its redesign.

Out in the West Country, I found two armchairs in an old barn full of antiques in need of a full overhaul. Once rescued from obscurity, I reupholstered them in brightly striped fabric from my most recent collection. The house was the ideal place to showcase my new paisley-patterned Hilltop fabric. Over the years, I have amassed a fabulous cache of vintage textiles and one gilt and carnelian scrap proved to be the perfect remnant with which to cover the ottoman in the living room. And I sourced some great paintings from one of my favorite dealers in Tetbury.

In this London townhouse, merging the classic proportions of a Georgian house with fresh, vital color in the shape of contemporary art, textiles, and furnishings was such a thrill. At first, I wasn’t sure how to decorate around the late 18th-century chandeliers that were already in situ. But once I got going, the rooms spoke to me, as they always do, and somehow, magically, I made them work. Now the chandeliers play a starring role, and I can’t even imagine not having them there.