QUEENS PARK HOUSE
A house in North West London decorated in
eclectic style with iconic furniture.
The Project
Privately owned, residential family home in north London, detached with 4 bedrooms over three floors. Our brief was to work closely with the client and her architect, assisting with decoration sourcing and choices and selecting a suitable suite of furniture.
The Background
The Challenge
The home contained a few small rooms which lay adjacent to the main areas. The challenge was to make them in-keeping and stylish with their own individual personality, despite the small space. We had to ensure that these rooms had the necessary space and furniture for their function while keeping them from becoming cramped and keeping to a cohesive aesthetic.
The library presented a particular challenge as it can be difficult to co-ordinate furniture with a multi-coloured book collection. It also prevented us from placing furniture against the walls as these were covered in bookshelves which needed to remain easily accessible.
The Solution
We opted to base the library around two iconic midcentury pieces: A Saarinen Tulip Table in white arabescato marble, and a Mies van der Rohe Barcelona chair with accompanying footstool in brown leather. Both of these pieces are manufactured by Knoll, a design brand we have a very close relationship with and specify more often than any other. These two pieces are some of the most iconic objects created in the 20th century, and easily held their own as the centrepiece of the room. The soft neutral colours avoided any clashes with the books, and the reliably manufactured pieces provided a comfortable spot to relax with a book.
Our client was highly interested in art and design and had a particular interest in midcentury modern designer furniture, which we specialised in. We worked closely with the client to help her express her own style through creating a beautiful home.
An important room of the house was the dining space, painted in a seagrass colour which combined with a large dining table in natural wooden materials yet with a sleek modern design and a unique art piece from Japan.
Our colour scheme was based around a set of paints we sourced from a brilliant female-owned business named Atelier, a company that provides paints made in the UK inspired by the natural tones of New Zealand. The gentle natural colours worked to create an atmosphere of serenity and calm, fitting in well with the home’s architectures.
The Outcome
Suggesting a strongly defined calm colour scheme co-ordinated with the client’s art pieces and the natural materials – between us and the client – we created a truly unique home that remained calm and serene throughout.
Design Details
It was an absolute pleasure working with Carly and Molly from start to finish.
From helping us choose wall colours and fabrics that harmonised, to providing mockups of numerous different dining chairs, to ordering furniture (including sorting out a tricky situation when something arrived with an issue), they provided calm, assured voices of sanity at a time when we were drowning in decisions. The two of them expertly helped us turn our cavernous wreck of listed house to a serene haven–no small task when being asked to incorporate much loved older pieces, a variety of art, and a clients with very definite ideas of their own. Even once everything was finished, Carly dropped by and suggested the perfect rug to bring a tricky room together, which she managed to have ordered and installed within a week.
We’ve been in the house since September and still drift around marvelling at how it’s turned out, which very definitely would not have happened without NW3 Interiors!