The Househunter: Room by Room

Hello everyone and welcome to this week’s edition of Where Shall I Spend My Fantasy Lottery Win If I Could Have Anything I Wanted Anywhere I Wanted And Didn’t Have To Make Practical Decisions Based On Commuting And Schools and Work.

Ready? We’re going to look at one house in more detail this week. Partly because I have just come back from LA and, as you read this, will be coming back from 24 hours in Leeds so time has been a real factor this week, but also because although this is massive – five bedrooms  – it’s a classic Victorian house the proportions and style of which will be familiar to many of you so we can look at what they have done and what you might do.

And also because look – a rattan chair (see yesterday’s post) that’s not in a conservatory and which has been brought into the sitting room where it is sitting very comfortably with the rest of the furniture. I might add a sheepskin for comfort and to make it a little less garden and a little more living room, but the principle remains the same. This room does not look like a throwback to the 1970s.

Now this house is on with Savills for £2,575,000 and is in West London in a very pretty little area called Brook Green and it has five bedrooms. All of which goes some way towards to explaining the price if not justifying it.

Here’s the sitting room from another angle. It’s a brave move to get rid of the wall between the hall and the sitting room but as someone who lives in a narrow Victorian terrace (as I suspect do many of you) it’s something I have often fantasised about. The vendors have chosen to keep the option of doors so they can close it off again if they want. And painted black they look great in this space and really give it some drama and punch. The downside is that the sofa is now in front of what was the fireplace so that won’t work for everyone.

In my 4am-can’t-sleep-fantasise-about-renovations moments (don’t judge it’s what fuels this blog) I have thought about removing half the wall and replacing it with an internal window so the sofa could stay in its traditional spot but the room would feel wider and lighter.

The key would be to paint the hall wall the same colour as the sitting room so that it would trick the eye into thinking it was all part of the same space.

Moving into the kitchen which is bright and light already and has room for a table and chairs. Note the stainless steel splashback – very practical and hardwearing – and the mismatched pendant lights over the peninsula which is a great touch. It’s also taken me more than a couple of scroll-throughs to notice that that is a bird on the worktop, which won’t be to everyone’s taste but I sort of like the randomness of it.

I also like the one blue chair at the table too. These days a selection of mismatched chairs can look a bit try-too-hard but one which has clearly been chosen for a reason makes sense. I suspect it was chosen to go with the painting, which I might not have done, but I would totally have thrown a green one in to link with the garden.

Moving upstairs to this bedroom with its unusually shaped alcove. The vendors had exactly the right idea here to zone the space using a different colour. The spotlights in the sloping ceiling are also perfect for a desk area.

These days we are now daring to have a little more fun with paint and realising that you don’t just have to put the same colour on all the walls. I might have taken this idea one step further and painted the sloping parts in the pink, or perhaps a darker version. You can’t hide that shape you might as well embrace it.

At a client’s house recently, which had low ceilings and lots of beams we have decided to do just that and paint the walls and ceilings one colour and the beams and skirtings another. It’s making a feature of the structure of the building rather than trying to make it look as if it’s a regular square and failing. There’s also a huge pillar in the middle of the open plan living space so we’re going to paint that in a really strong colour to make it look like it’s welcome there and not that we’re trying to hide it.

Finally to the last bedroom (there are three more so do go and visit) where I love this greeny blue colour on the wardrobe doors. I also love the yellow tassle handles. Again, I might have stopped there rather than adding more yellow to the bed but the point is a good one. Rather than sticking to tried and tested methods to add colour – cushions and throws – think about how you might do it another way – handles for example.

We tend to ignore the touch points and yet those are the parts we interact with and so they are the ones we remember afterwards. A tactile brightly coloured handle will linger long after you’ve forgotten the pattern on a cushion.

I hope that has inspired you to look at your own touch points, lighting and rooms with fresh eyes. Sometimes it can be really easy to ring the changes just by moving things from one room to another, updating a chair with a throw or changing the handles on the doors. And sometimes, just like buying a new top suddenly feels like your wardrobe has had a new lease of life because you changed one thing, so adding or swapping one thing can make a huge difference to a space and make you love it all over again. And that can’t be bad can it?