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Showing posts with label interiors library. Show all posts

Showing posts with label interiors library. Show all posts

Kitchen Update

Magazines – and the popular belief – will tell you that design is all about beautiful things; beauty lies in great design and beauty lies in form and function. Whether designing for a new home or updating your current kitchen, this thinking is especially true, as the form needs to be functional.

Generally considered the heart of a home, it’s a place for us to catch up with friends, cook the evening meal, hold parties and enjoy family time. Innovative ideas, great attention to detail or bespoke design solutions can transform your kitchen and it’s the details that make the difference. Colourful splashbacks, painted walls, customised cabinets or colourful accessories are all ways to bring the heart of the home back to life.

Work surface

The worktop surface is a big part of your kitchen design and with so many choices available these days, different materials can create different looks in your kitchen. Using a solid surface as your worktop enables any scratches to be sanded out, can create a seamless look in your kitchen, is stain resistant and can be made to your specifications. While these are some of the main materials used for kitchen worktops, please take a look at our selection... view search

Children in the kitchen

Our children absolutely love to role play, we do all we can to encourage them. Children love to step in and out of different worlds and situations. Role play with play kitchens also teaches basic maths and numeracy skills and as they use the different food, utensils and gadgets, they’ll even learn new words, shapes and colours. Play kitchens and food toys are also great tools to start young children thinking about healthy eating and nutrition…and it’s something that the whole family can enjoy together... view search

21st Century Cotswolds

Building their own home allowed the Wild family the best of both worlds – a traditional farmhouse façade and hi-tech glamour within. “Plots in the Cotswolds are like hen’s teeth,” says interiors and silverware designer J.B. Wild. “But we’d had a tip-off that this one was coming up for auction: 130 acres of fantastic land, with beautiful hedges and all well maintained. It had been in the same family for 90 years and we were lucky enough to get it,” she exclaims, still delighted at this piece of good fortune. Just a stone’s throw from Bourton-on-the Water, a village voted one of England’s prettiest, J.B., her husband, Chris, and their three children had nabbed themselves an idyllic spot – and one on which their dream to build their own home could be realised... view feature

Parisienne Loft

The owners of this loft are both architects who work well together as well as separately. A year of renovation work enabled them to transform this former workshop: the vast basement became their offices and they kept the ground floor for their living space. They retained the original outside structure, a long street facade with full height windows, so typical of industrial premises. "This work is more interesting because it required more thought from us!" “From these 80 m2, we feel we tried to get the best solution.... a smaller space forces you to find creative storage tricks.” They also wanted to keep a certain purity of lines, and cleverly incorporated large cupboards into walls, as well as in the metal staircase. The kitchen is also finely worked and to save space, the architects decided to create a mezzanine level. With distinct areas for night and day, it is an easy-to-live in Parisienne loft.. view feature

A House Full of Life

At the grand old 1800-century farmhouse in Espergærde, Cornelia lives with her husband Donald and their five children. The property has been renovated from floor to beam, but despite its brightened interior and new fittings, it still holds onto its historical charm through its original frame work. This clean and bright approach is even true of the bathroom, which has been decorated in a crisp monochromatic style. Not only does the home offer ample space for the large family; it even hosts both parents' businesses. Cornelia runs Casa Cornelia, a residential interiors shop from one of the wings, whilst Donald runs his business AB Horizon from his office on the second floor... view feature

Chocolate Orange

Stunning cocoa and tangerine cabinetry in a smart glossy finish ensures the Clarke’s large kitchen-diner is a truly delicious design. For most people, the process of finding a home is nothing short of a quest for perfection. But then Viki Clarke, a graphic designer with a keen eye for style, isn’t like most people. ‘I wanted a project I could get my teeth into,’ she says. So when a neglected period terrace came up for sale in south-west London Viki couldn’t wait to take her husband Mike along for a look... view feature

Three Chords and the Truth

This phrase, coined as it was by a country musician, and later appropriated by the punk-scene is anything but the equivalent of simplicity as many take it to mean. On the contrary, it requires hard work, the ability to improvise, historical knowledge, and a whole bunch of will-power. It just looks and sounds simple. Like a good architect’s work. Walking from cabin to cabin between the rock-formations, and from room to room, it dawns on us that what the owners have created here isn’t just an updated version of the “summer-cabin”, but an alternate cabin-universe altogether.. view feature

Modern Classic

This classical architect works for one of the country's rare classical practices, Robert Adam, and although he admits to a desire to one day build his own home, for now he's content with what he has - this charming, three storey house in a leafy Winchester street. Built in the late 1800s, it's part of an attractive row of four pairs of externally identical properties. "The peace and solitude evaporates when my two boys come to stay," he explains. "Otherwise the house is extremely peaceful and condusive to work." The owner has done little to change the house's original layout, save for moving the kitchen from a small back room to a bigger location on the ground floor, which has been knocked through to embrace an open plan dining room. The basement houses a sitting room and guest quarters, and upstairs there are three bedrooms and a bathroom. But it's the kitchen and it's adjacent dining room in which the architect spends nearly all of his free time, mostly drawing... view feature

Single Images

Well, we cant talk about 2012 without talking about the UK Olympic Games; they have released the colours so let’s see how they creep into interior design next year, to get you off to a good start here is a search of them all... view search

Bright New World

Leaving a fashion job in London for rural Cheshire gave Jan Constantine not just a colourful new home, but a fresh career, too. While visiting her sister on her farm near Crewe, Constantine and her husband, David Ralphs, saw a house and outbuildings for sale in a neighbouring village. They bought the property and went back to London to sell up and move. Constantine, who worked in the fashion industry at the time, commuted for a while until they had converted the buildings next to their new home, turning them into holiday cottages. The main house was once the doctor’s; he held surgery in what is today the dining room, with a damask-covered table and sparkling chandelier. Where the village bakery once dispensed warm loaves and spicy buns, there is now an office, and one of the store buildings was turned into the HQ of Constantine’s furnishings company... View feature

Nesting Instinct

"We didn't do much to the place for the first year because, with the business to run and a new baby to care for, I was just too exhausted to think." says Emily Evans, the founder of hip maternity-wear boutique 9London. Three years on, however, her home is just how she wants it. A fire crackles in the open hearth and a compelling mix of antique hand-me-downs and classic 20th-century pieces vie for attention, while extraordinary one-offs, such as a diamante-encrusted deer skull, add a quirky edge... View feature

Rule Britannia!

This light filled family home combines hot pink walls with clean white interiors; each room draws you into its cosy and welcoming surroundings. It’s evident that it’s important for this family to be surrounded by furnishings and decorations that evoke a sense of hearth and home. Shaker style furniture in the kitchen dining room house collections of pretty ceramics and china; embroidered cushions and handmade fabrics add their finishing touches in each room and fairy lights adorn chandeliers and wall hangings. A main theme throughout is the union jack: a re-worked flag in the living room; a motif on the crockery; the bathroom rug and even a sequined fashion accessory…in this house it’s Rule Britannia! View feature

On Her Patch

Lisa Whatmough’s furniture business is the toast of the East End, thanks to hard work and a full-on social life. Our correspondent pops in for a cup of tea. We’re a bit like the Primrose Hill set, only without the shagging,” jokes Lisa Whatmough founder of the furniture re-upholstery business Squint, of her fashion-crowd friends. She is one of the leading lights of the East End design scene, so it’s no surprise that she moves in fashionable circles – her close friends include the jewellery designer Lara Bohinc and Dan Crouch, co-owner of cool Camden pub the Lock Tavern. “In the 1990s, we were always going to each other’s club nights, but priorities change as you get older,” she says. “Now it’s more about sitting at home and drinking tea together.” View feature

Illusions of Grandeur

From the opulent palette to elaborate fittings, such splendour might make one wonder among which rolling acres of countryside this stately home sits. The answer is none. The tiny one-bed flat is the back of a former laundry in Clapham. The flat is the work and home of Tim Gosling, who trained as a theatre designer and, for almost 20 years, worked with the Queen’s nephew viscount Linley before 4 years ago starting his own company... view feature

Basement Living

A young couple moved from a small house on the outskirts of London to a basement flat in the heart of the city. They opened up a series of small rooms to create a large living dining area and used a mirror, panels of decorative wallpaper and interesting light fittings to bring a feeling of brightness and interest to the subterranean flat. They also created a courtyard garden space with box seats and a mirrored wall which makes the space seem larger. They now enjoy all the city has to offer in the way of clubs and nightlife without having to worry about the last train home, and their dogs have the run of Hyde Park instead of a small suburban garden... View feature

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