Joanna Plant’s west London house has been moulded by two decades of family life
“We said, ‘Show us the houses that no one else is really looking at,’” explains Joanna Plant of her search for a home for her young family. “I didn’t really know what the motivation for that was particularly, but I guess we just wanted something that wasn’t the obvious choice.” In 2001, that choice meant a semi-detached 1929 house in Acton, decked out in abominable 1970s décor and boasting a terrifying rockery in the garden. It was, by all accounts, something of an ugly duckling – and yet interior designer Joanna and her husband Nick, who designs and sources furniture and antiques, saw potential in it.
“That style of house, certainly at that time, had not the greatest associations. And I think it’s interesting, because what they have is slightly better spaces for quite a modest house. The hallways are often more generous than very narrow Victorian or Edwardian terraces.” Despite a narrow façade facing onto a quiet, leafy suburban road, the house extends backwards and outwards along a triangular plot, meaning the garden at the back is very wide. Coming from “a tiny-weeny little cottage” with an outdoor courtyard that was “two strides wide”, the couple knew that they’d found the ideal house for two sons who were dying for more garden space. “When walked through to the back, and it had that huge garden, it was a done deal. That was it.”
The garden more than outweighed the 1970s deep-pile pink carpet (“It was so grim,” says Joanna), the electric fires in every room, the brown-and-orange tiles and the tatty linoleum (“A 1970s sitcom kind of aesthetic,” she adds. “All a bit grisly”). The house was given a gradual facelift, the rockery at the back of the house hidden under a shady deck and Joanna’s subtle touch gradually updating and modernising it. “It’s evolved a lot,” she explains, “but it’s been very, very slow, and there was never a plan. I think for that reason, it doesn’t feel decorated, which I find I like at home. I don’t really want to live in an overly coordinated, thought-through [home].”
The Plants’ is a family house, first and foremost. While Joanna admits that the kitchen has been the scene of many a raucous party hosting family and friends, it is the happy mismash of art hanging in the front sitting room that gives the best indication of how the house is full of good memories. “To think of it as a collection makes it sound terribly grand,” she says. “I always look at every picture and know exactly where and when it was bought. Some of them are little more than a postcard, but it’s really nice to look at them and think, ‘Oh, well, I got that when I got that job’ or when travelling on holiday.” One piece hung high on the wall, a drawing of a corvid by one of her sons, is Joanna’s Instagram profile picture. Elsewhere, a couple of Howard Hodgkin works number among her personal favourites.
Asked to summarise the values that she aims for in her professional work, Joanna promptly names comfort, timelessness and “a touch of glamour”, and all three can be seen in the house, where she occasionally experiments with ideas to use in work projects. Her inspiration is wide-ranging. “I think I look to the Georgians for the bones: proportion and detail,” she says of her process. “I look at the 1920s and 30s for glamour. And then I think I probably go to the old-school Americans for the practical comfort – Nancy Lancaster.” On the first floor, one of the bedrooms is decorated similarly to the one Joanna designed for Design Centre Chelsea Harbour’s WOW!House industry showcase in June, with a 1940s Spanish bed with ornamental iron flowers comprising the centrepiece and curtains by Tissus d’Hélène. Likewise, over the staircase, a beautiful English crewelwork hanging was salvaged from another project; another like it now hangs in a farmhouse she worked on in Ibiza. Throughout the house there are subtle reminders of her eye for detail.
Joanna’s favourite room in her home is her utility room, but perhaps the most ambitious in the house is her own bedroom. This haven of peace and quiet is wallpapered in a stunning Laura Ashley chintz matched to similar but ever so slightly different ‘Chinese Paper’ hanging fabric from Bennison, which she trimmed in red to better define its edges (as the Laura Ashley chintz is discontinued, Joanna had to amass the wallpaper roll by roll whenever she came across it on eBay). At the top of the house along with a small en suite bathroom, it feels like a cocoon of floral calm, accessed by a steep staircase papered in the same pattern that only increases the sensation. “I definitely have a strong leaning towards red,” she says. “Diana Vreeland said it’s ‘the great clarifier’; I always hold on to that quote.” Red runs throughout the house elsewhere in the magnolias by the door, in the hanging curtains in the utility room cut from a vintage French mattress cover, in the cushions laid out on the garden furniture.
It is a house, then, that incrementally builds up a picture of its residents of two decades, and one which rewards close attention. “The way that we’ve lived in it has changed over the years,” Joanna reflects. “With such small children, and then bigger children, and teenage children, and then no children, and now children back again – that’s had a very real impact on what’s been required. It wasn’t ever like we came in with a masterplan.”
Joanna Plant is a member of The List by House & Garden, our essential directory of design professionals. Find her profile here.
Owen Gale1/14The kitchen chairs date to circa 1910, by Otto Wagner, and were collected one by one. They sit around a Scottish scrubbed-top mahogany table from around 1840 sourced by Miles Griffiths Antiques. The pendant light is a vintage ceiling light by Arne Jacobsen.
Owen Gale2/14The chair is a Heathfield chair made in Nick and Joanna’s workshop, covered in Ian Mankin ticking, under an antique Fench silver gilt bistro mirror from Maison Artefact. The lanterns on the wall are early 20th-century architect’s chalk and charcoal drawings for Cahors cathedral in France, bought from Lorfords Antiques.
Owen Gale3/14The cupboards are custom-made and painted in Paint Library’s ‘Slate I’; the splashback is Carrara marble.
Owen Gale4/14The curtains in the utility room – Joanna’s favourite – are made from a vintage French mattress cover which she cut up and sewed herself. The tiles are from Bert & May and the hanger is a classic Pulleymaid.
Owen Gale5/14Over the 18th-century oak monastery table hangs a vintage Italian gilded bronze light dating to circa 1970 from Howe. The chairs are also vintage, by Thonet, and the curtains are ‘Fela Stripe’ by Adam Bray – a very close and old friend of Joanna’s – from Tissus d’Hélène.
Owen Gale6/14The sofa under the window is a 35-year-old sofa that Nick and Joanna have owned since they moved in, upholstered in ticking from Ian Mankin. The coffee table is French, from the 1960s and bought in an antique shop in Ibiza. The small chair to the left was bought at Battersea Decorative Fair and is upholstered in Howe goatskin. The sheepskin rug – mostly claimed by the dog, in front of the fire – is from Sinclair Till and the curtains are ‘Fela Stripe’ by Adam Bray from Tissus d’Hélène.
Owen Gale7/14The green sofa is based on a 1940s daybed, made in Nick and Joanna’s workshop and upholstered in mohair velvet from Lelièvre. The table is an antique Indian Hoshaipur inlaid table, and the green resin lamp and shade are by Marianna Kennedy. The raven to the left is by Piers Jackson; the bird top and centre is by Gabriel Plant, Joanna’s son.
Owen Gale8/14The cupboards in teh upstairs bathroom are painted in Farrow & Ball’s ‘Arsenic’. The lamps are by Hector Finch, the tiles are from Bert & May, and the brass-edged mirror is one of Joanna and Nick’s own designs.
Owen Gale9/14The bed is Spanish, from the 1940s, and was bought from Brownrigg; the headboard is by Ensemblier. The table is another Hoshaipur inlaid table similar to the one in the sitting room. The lamp is from Hector Finch. The curtains are Rose Cummings’ ‘Camille’ from Tissus d’Hélène.
Owen Gale10/14The chair in the corner is an antique button-back chair by Howard & Son. The ottoman is made in Nick and Joanna’s workshop, upholstered in a Bennison stripe, and the rug is vintage, from rug from Joshua Lumley.
Owen Gale11/14The roll-top bath is from Fired Earth. The chair is one made in the Plants’ workshop, upholstered in Bennison’s ‘Rosevine’.
Owen Gale12/14On the terrace in the garden, the marble-top table is from Puckhaber Antiques, and the Georgian bench was found at Henley salvage fair. The French chairs are from Jensen & Ballantine Antiques.
Owen Gale13/14
Owen Gale14/14Joanna Plant in her garden.
