Bright new world

All of the interior design trends for 2014 will feature colourful palettes, whether focussing on muted colours or fluidity associated with the blues and greens of water. Pantone’s ‘eccentricities’ palette is vibrant, colourful and encourages a defiance of the established or traditional designs. This spectrum of colours allows an opportunity to experiment, with a sense of playfulness and wit or to combine juxtaposed colours. Lemon zest, green flash, nectarine orange, skydiver purple, rouge red and strawberry ice can be complemented or contrasted to reflect the homeowner’s personality. Monochrome stalwarts can always seek refuge with pirate black or marshmallow white. Please see a selection below…

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Bright Ideas

Victoria Whitbread’s design company has had huge success with its range of Pantone mugs, so it’s hardly surprising that her love of colour can be seen all over her South London home – from purple floors to Union Jack tea cosies and pink elephants, it’s anything but drab… View interior feature

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Nilsson House

Hans Nilsson, a Swedish engineering consultant and his Swiss social scientist wife Ruth came across a rather run down apartment occupying the upper three floors of an Edwardian townhouse in a leafy garden square in the north London suburb of Primrose Hill. It had been used as a studio for filming and photography, therefore not lived in for years - many scenes from the film Sliding Doors with Gwyneth Paltrow were shot here. It was in dire need of a total refurbishment before it could be lived in again, so Hans and Ruth brought in the dynamic interior designer Mia Karlsson – also Swedish – to apply her idiosyncratic Scandinavian panache and joyful décor to the shabby and tired apartment, thereby turning it into a sleek, colourful and thoroughly modern home… View interior feature

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Vive la différence

Moveable coloured cubes, quirky 18th-century reproductions… Who’d have guessed you were in the Loire Valley? Many successful relationships are based on compromise, working around differences with a bit of give and take. But seldom are such adaptations as clearly visible as in the French forest home of Yves Legendre and Micheline Taillardat. When you first encounter the house, deep in the Loire Valley, it comes as a shock. An apparently random collection of cubes clad in pale pink, vivid yellow and grey looms out of the dark leafy woods. Strawberries nestle around the steel poles of the Meccano-type structure that anchors the cubes, sedum and grass grow on the flat roofs and fish-eye round windows glint in the sunshine. Step inside this space ship of a house, though, and despite the yellow walls, it is furnished in a classic and feminine style. A Forties Italian bed sits in the main bedroom and a pair of vintage red-leather armchairs stand up well against the vibrant background… View interior feature

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A percussion of colour

At home in the apartment and housing business Pang Christianshavn. Both places bursting with life, imagination and love for interior design, for which Anna-Britt has many years experience - including, set designer at Danmarks Radio. "After 18 years with Danish Radio, where I worked on set design, decor and props, I wanted to live my dream of owning a shop," says Anna-Britt Harding. Ceilings and floors are white and bright and are finely contrasted with all the many colourful things… View interior feature

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Casa Chicca, Italy

The interior design of this apartment is the result of the proprietor’s – a young woman from a noble Sicilian family - passion for antiques, furniture from different periods, and for a variety of collectable objects. Her hobby has resulted in a vintage yet fresh style, mixing mid-century designs with 19th century prints, and putting into the blend the occasional contemporary objects in order to maintain a playful, informal look. The living area of the apartment is laid out in a series of spacious, interconnected rooms, arranged in one plane, and offering a stunning visual perspective. These ambiences (two living rooms, a dining room and an office) are delineated by bright colour schemes, yet the wide doorways enable the individual spaces to remain visually connected with each other, echoing the cool marble flooring, which flows throughout, and which is only punctuated by the occasional colourful rug… View interior feature

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Salvage loft in an old summer camp

Somewhere between an art gallery and cabinet of curiosities, surrealism and design point you towards Christian Nesler’s home on the Isle of Ré; a former summer camp canteen transformed. A somewhat fortuitous find, several friends purchased the buildings as a collective; Christian chose the kitchen, which was in ruins, a refectory, store room and a cold room. Converting it to an avant-garde loft was the challenge and with graphic elements like the black and white tiled floor, the red couch or the yellow lamp Christian nourishes his art of salvage materials. Assembling abstract compositions where the different materials play and colours create singular atmospheres "Each piece is unique and absolutely not reproducible". Christian Nesler made us discover his universe, his humour… View interior feature

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