A young designer's unconventional approach to the renovation of a wreck
It’s so easy to get stuck in a fixed idea of 'this is what a chair looks like, this is what a headboard looks like,', but why should we?", asks the interior designer Pandora Taylor – one of our 30 up-and-coming designers to watch – who has made her own house in London into a showcase for her witty, playful aesthetic. "Many of the decorating ideas we live with have actually become fixed quite recently," she continues. "If you look at interiors from the 1960s and 70s, even, they were doing much more surreal things, and using materials in more inventive ways. I've seen rooms covered in carpet – the walls, the ceiling, the furniture – and I don’t know how things went back to such a traditional style after all that."
It's a train of thought that is very much in evidence throughout the Victorian semi-detached house in southwest London she shares with her husband. It was the first house they bought together, and quite different in style from the warehouse apartment where she lived before. "The dream for an interior designer is a project," she says, "and that's certainly what we got. When I saw the 'For Sale' sign two doors down from a friend's house, I thought I would never be able to afford it, but it was a wreck!" The house had been inhabited for years by an elderly couple who had neglected it badly. "Every room was filled with junk - old fridges and metal beds," recalls Pandora. "There wasn’t really a kitchen, the bathroom looked like it hadn’t been used in forever, there was no central heating, and all the windows were rotten." So they started from scratch, creating a generous kitchen in the large front room and filling the rest of the space with colour, texture and an array of unusual forms.
Pandora designed each room as a small world of its own, starting with the dark and moody hallway. "I always had the idea that I wanted the hallway to be a dark tunnel that takes you off into all these bright lovely rooms, and that there should be a transformational feeling, as if you are stepping into a different world." The kitchen is crisp and airy in pale blue and bleached oak, the high ceilings and the absence of wall cabinets contributing to its peculiar lightness. The mood alternates again as you pass through a large archway into the cocooning darkness of the sitting room, where Farrow & Ball's 'De Nimes' has found its perfect complement in the peacock colourway of Guy Goodfellow's 'Fez Weave' in the curtains.
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Pandora has created much of the furniture herself for each room, which only adds to the distinctiveness of the spaces. The expansive dining table in the kitchen is one such creation, as is the curving sofa in the sitting room. " I was trying to work out how to make the kitchen and living room feel connected," explains Pandora, "and I came up with the idea of a sofa that would curve back round to take you back into the kitchen." The bespoke element is even more obvious in the bedrooms upstairs, with their unexpected, slightly fantastical headboards. "Why does everyone think that headboards have to be one shape?" asks Pandora. "If you're making one from scratch, it doesn’t cost any more to make it interesting. It then becomes the artwork for that wall." The shard-like, bevelled-edge headboard in her own room emerged from a dream, fittingly enough. "That hazy moment between being awake and being asleep always brings up ideas," she says, and the disconnected shapes of the bubble headboard she designed for a spare room seem to embody that very moment.
If surprising shapes form one thread that ties the house together, the colour blue is another obvious one. "Every room but the very top one is painted in different shades of blue," Pandora notes. "It’s the perfect neutral shade for me. I have no white walls; it feels like a waste, when there are so many beautiful colours out there." Equally important is her choice of materials; Pandora has a clever way of elevating the simpler shapes in her interiors with interesting finishes. The flat panel wardrobes in her bedroom, for example, were simple (and affordable) enough to make, but the oak burr veneer and the star shaped handles raise them into something extraordinary. The fireplace in the same room is another example, a straightforward mid-century outline covered in Balineum's glorious glazed 'Terra Firma' tiles. Perhaps the most skillful balancing act is in the bathroom, where, Pandora admits, the green marble and riotous tiles "could have been too much". She has steadied their exuberance, however, with plain blue walls and classic oak cabinets, and it all seems just right.
When it comes to clients, Pandora knows how to balance her own fearlessness with their sensibilities. "I try to take their ideas and push them a bit, but it has to reflect them and not just me." Having said that, her own house makes a strong case for trusting her. "People are so afraid to be bold because they’re afraid they’ll get fed up of it," she concludes, "but if you love it, you won't."
Michael Sinclair1/15Pandora designed the dining table herself, surrounding it with vintage chairs. The walls are painted in Farrow & Ball's Palma Gray. An artwork by Thierry Genay hangs on the chimneybreast, framed in Perspex to avoid damage.
Michael Sinclair2/15The hallway is painted in Farrow & Ball's De Nimes, with woodwork in Off Black. A vintage Murano glass pendant hangs from the ceiling, while Pandora found the sconces at TAT London.
Michael Sinclair3/15The sitting room opens off the kitchen.
Michael Sinclair4/15Pandora created the curving sofa, while the footstools are her own 'Humbug' design. "You always want to put your feet up on the coffee table," she says, "so I prefer using these instead."
Michael Sinclair5/15In Pandora's bedroom, the walls are painted in Farrow & Ball's 'Skylight", a gentle background for her 'Shard' headboard in a deep red velvet from Métaphores. The curtains are in Lewis & Wood's 'Wild Thing' pattern.
Michael Sinclair6/15A vintage P60 armchair reupholstered in a Skandilock sheepskin stands in front of the fireplace, with its Balineum tiles. Wall lights by Viola Lanari surround an artwork by Nicky Knowles.
Michael Sinclair7/15Handles by Bonnemazou Cambus enliven the burr oak surface of the wardrobes.
Michael Sinclair8/15In this bedroom, Calico's ombré 'Aurora' wallcovering in azure is the backdrop for a bubble-shaped headboard in Lewis & Wood's 'Rooksmore' linen. A 'Scallop' rug by Jennifer Manners for Salvesen Graham echoes the shapes.
Michael Sinclair9/15The walls in the bathroom are painted in Farrow & Ball's 'Oval Room Blue', with mirrors by Balineum and a Primavera marble surface on the oak vanity.
Michael Sinclair10/15The tiles in the shower are by Fonace Brioni.
Michael Sinclair11/15Another bedroom features Pandora's 'Dune' headboard in Thomas Callaway's 'Marais Stipple' fabric. The wall light is from Wo & We.
Michael Sinclair12/15An antique slipper chair is upholstered in Guy Goodfellow's 'Olive Sacking' in indigo with an 'Aquitaine' fringe by Samuel & Sons. The sculptures on the floor are by Augustus Stickland from The Blue Shop Cottage.
Michael Sinclair13/15This top bedroom is papered in Zak & Fox's 'Auspicious' pattern, with woodwork in Little Greene's 'Jewel Beetle'. Pandora's 'Cane Table' stands by the bed.
Michael Sinclair14/15This bathroom has walls in Farrow & Ball's 'Setting Plaster', with a terrazzo floor by Diespeker. The wall light is from Rich Brilliant Willing and the sink is by Lefroy Brooks.
Michael Sinclair15/15The bathroom is tiled in zellige tiles from Mosaic Del Sur.
