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10 Beautiful Rooms

It’s Monday so it must be time to look at 10 more beautiful rooms and highlight the work of talented designers, architects and photographers to inspire us all.

design by Suzy MacAdam
design by Suzy MacAdam

These first two room are by Suzy MacAdam, a Dublin-based designer who began her career in California before returning to Ireland and setting up her own studio. I love the dark walls above with the two palm trees either side of the window and the Seletti monkey lights. It’s fun, it’s bold and it brings wit to her design. Something that is often missing from interior design when the sums are money are large and can often induce a sense of humour failure. Try to find it and bring it back I say.

design by Suzy MacAdam
design by Suzy MacAdam

Last week I had two clients both of whom had mostly finished their houses and both of whom wanted help with the finishing touches. Both of them also had navy blue kitchens. Is the reign of the all white kitchen over? I like to think it might be. There’s nothing wrong with white but look how characterful and strong both these designs are.

black panelled wall via shootfactory
anders house via shootfactory

This is one of my all-time favourite kitchens. Crittal windows, grey cupboards with a dark grey island, natural wood and black accents. If I could replace my bifold doors I would. I have settled for painting them black. Both of last week’s clients had crittal windows across the back of their kitchens. One from Crittal and one in crittal-style aluminim. Both looked amazing.

Abi Cambell's modern rustic kitchen
Abi Cambell’s modern rustic kitchen. Image by Matt Clayton 

But the love for the critall doesn’t stop there. Designer Cherie Lee often uses them in her work as you can see in the two images below.

cherie lee interiors

My house isn’t this shape and I can’t think where I could put an internal glass wall even if funds were permitting but that’s not to say I don’t still love looking at them and dreaming…

internal crittall windows by cherie lee interiors
internal crittall windows by cherie lee interiors

But then again, as I have said before, it’s all about the glimpses into other rooms for me. Of course you want the room you are in to be lovely but it’s just as important to enjoy the view into another room as you pass by. Perhaps to the fireplace in the sitting room as you race out of the door to work promising yourself that come the weekend you will sit in there and relax.

photo @kronfoto Styling by scandinavianhomes

Or the view to the spareroom – perhaps mostly empty but at least make sure you are looking at something attractive when you rush past and not a pile of laundry and all the junk that you cleared out of the kitchen and dumped there to make space for something else.

black library shelves by royalroulott
black library shelves by royalroulotte 

This is the kind of view I would enjoy every single time I walked past if this were my house. It’s by French design studio Royal Roulotte whose work also features in the new Rockett St George book which I wrote about a few weeks ago. Black shelves really do make the books stand out.

And look at this fabulous black kitchen. I’m always encouraging people to consider patterned tiles for their kitchens – it’s more practical than a rug and softens all those hard lines. You don’t have to do the whole floor if you worry it might be a bit too much – just a lay a rug shape of tile and put the wooden-effect tiles, or floorboards, or plain tiles around it. You can lay it like a runner as they have done below or make a rug under the table instead of a real one.

And finally, because it’s the end of the feature so somehow a good bathroom always feels like a good place to close. And it’s back to the view idea. You probably don’t have time to have a bath every day but looking at this at you hurtle past to the shower on a Tuesday morning reminds you that you are one day closer to the weekend when there will, perhaps, be time for you to indulge yourself in relaxation and making space for yourself.

gabriel via shootfactory

Have a good week everyone. I’ll be back here tomorrow. Do drop in.

Kate Watson-Smyth

The author Kate Watson-Smyth

I’m a journalist who writes about interiors mainly for The Financial Times but I have also written regularly for The Independent and The Daily Mail. My house has been in Living Etc, HeartHome and featured in The Wall Street Journal & Corriere della Sera. I also run an interior styling consultancy Mad About Your House. Welcome to my Mad House.

2 Comments

  1. Love a bit of Crittall! Sadly I think the reality of living with internal Crittall requires a level of cleanliness and organisation that my husband and child don’t possess, let alone the lottery funds needed to install it in the first place, but I can dream…

  2. I replaced all my downstairs internal doors, bar the loo door and the pantry door with critall style doors. So I have a single study door, double doors and side panels from the hall into the sitting/ dining room and 2 sets of double doors either side of an old chimney breast into my kitchen from the sitting/dining room. They cost around £14,000 but I economised elsewhere. I did it to increase the amount of light into the house and also to get those interesting vistas, including one from the front door right through the house to the garden. And it is definitely worth it.

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