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The Househunter: 19/9/14

After last week’s enthusiastic reception to the return of The Househunter, I’m pleased to be kicking off this week with visit to west London to the home of shoe designer LK Bennett.

white room black wall

You like the store? You’ll probably love the house. It’s on the market for £8.95m with CBRE Residential and it’s really quite fancy as you can see.

white sitting room green carpet

Converted from three floors of office space it has its own lift and a 56ft long roof terrace. I know, no garden, but hell, we could manage with a balcony that big.

white dining room lk bennett

It’s very minimal and very tidy and when I buy it I shall probably throw down a few more rugs and hang a few more pictures on the wall but then I have always tended more towards the maximalist end of the scale.

roof terrace at night lk bennet

I’m quite sad there’s no picture of the kitchen as it’s only when it’s not there you realise how much I/you/we? judge a house by its kitchen. Anyway, there isn’t, you can decide what that means. On on on to the next.

stainless steel kitchen, wooden cupboards

And that’s a former bakery in South East London which is on the market for £1,350,000 via The Modern House. I love kitchen above although I think I would have used black grout on the tiles.

huge skylight, wooden floor black sofa

This large open plan space with that enormous skylight is wonderful and just look at the grain on that floor.

wooden floor, crittall windows, subway tiles

It is arranged over two floors but has permission for a third floor to be added. There are currently two bedrooms and a dressing room on the ground floor with the living space above.

white house from the modernhouse

Finally, this. There are 41 images in the brochure which is something I don’t think I have ever seen before. It’s another Modern House property (£1,750,000) but the outside is extraordinary. It’s clad in opaque black glass to reflect the environment around it.

black house via the modernhouse

Isn’t it amazing. I sort of prefer the outside to the inside but then you can change the inside and I think I might spend a lot of time lying in the garden staring at this house.

white kitchen

Having said that, I wouldn’t cry if this was my kitchen and I love how the owners have added red cables to the pendant lights. A great little detail

kitchen diner

There are four bedrooms and it’s by the architect Ian McChesney who definitely deserves a mention for his work. There are sliding doors and large floor to ceiling windows to keep that link with the outside.

modern wood burning stove

But it is, ultimately, the exterior that wins so here are a couple more images for you to really see it.

IMG_2630

I had to look at this one below a couple of times before I realised what was going on.

reflection

So where are we moving to this week folks?

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.

1 Comment

  1. We think we would go for the L.K Bennett one, love how light it looks and the open spaces. Would be good to see the kitchen but I guess if we can afford 8.95 million, we can build our dream kitchen too!

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