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The Househunter 20/5/16

bakeryplace via savills

It’s a tale of two halves this week. Firstly the very modern conversion with lots of black accents and internal crittal windows versus the stucco-fronted family home that is mainly white and also has a rather gorgeous internal glass wall.

internal windows in reception

The first is a collection of eight apartments in Battersea’s Bakery Place which is on the market with Savills. These images are all from the penthouse and they’re not telling you the price yet, but I figured as you probably weren’t going to actually, you know, buy one, then a fantasy poke about would be fine.

bakery place via savills.com

Herringbone floors are making a real comeback and they’re everywhere at the moment. Mix this with lots of strong black and a few plants and it’s a winning combination. Don’t forget the marble coffee table and the velvet sofa.

crittal internal windows

Of course it’s all about these internal glass walls for me. How I would love to take out a wall in my house and replace it with something like this. I think we can safely say it’s not going to happen, but there are plenty of other ideas to steal from here.

open plan living

I was also struck by how warm the bedroom was in comparison. That brass table and the wall lights create a much softer atmosphere than in the other rooms.

brass bedside table

Next up we’re renting for squillions of pounds (don’t even go there) but if you want to see the rest of this four bedroom house you can check it out at Domus Nova. Once again I heard the siren call of the internal window although, on closer inspection, this turns out to be a mirror.

And this, it suddenly occurs to me is something we can totally do in our own homes. You can buy panelling from the DIY store and then you can buy architrave and mirror tiles too and you could make a wall like this. I would paint the panels and wooden frames black (by which I mean dark grey obvs) and then add the mirror squares to bounce the light around.

I am totally thinking I might do the hall….

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I might have to mention it to him outdoors of course but, you know, softly softly and all that. I’ll let you know how that one goes down…

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In the meantime you can have a wander round the rest of this monochrome house. Imagine having a room big enough for a curved sofa. Fancy!

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Have a great weekend and I’ll see you all back here soon.

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. The first has nice photos, and I also like those interior windowed walls, but then you realize they’re there because of a lack of light. It says “penthouse” but it’s looking more like “attic” to me. But maybe that’s because I’m not in London, where everything has three or four extra zeros at the end.
    The second one is more my taste, but while I find monochrome, especially white/ecru monochrome, to be soothing, in this case it surpassed soothing and went all the way to boring. If it’s going for squillions of pounds, it should be anything but boring. Granted, the mirrored wall is brilliant, especially with a piano in the corner. I am looking for a place to make this happen.

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