An unusual Victorian terraced house in London softened for family life
If ever you are looking to move into a house which challenges what a typical terraced house can be, I suggest you do as the owners of this corner cottage in west London did, and buy one from an architect. If you are then wanting to make it comfortable and practical enough for a family to live in, you should also heed the advice of these clever Londoners, and enlist the help of interior designers Nicholas Spencer and Sophie von Wedekind. Their refined, contemporary yet softened approach lends itself to family life as much as it does to grown-up, pared-back living.
When the two opened their eponymous studio in 2014, which is conveniently located in a building at the end of their garden, it seems they landed squarely in the midst of their dream customer base. ‘We loved doing this project’, says Nicholas, standing outside his office and pointing across the road. ‘This one was lovely too’, he adds, hand moving. Their fortunate choice of location is not the first time that serendipity has come into play.
Nicholas smiles as he tells the story of when he first visited the house, by pure coincidence, twenty years ago. ‘I was in my twenties and I had been invited to a housewarming party by a friend of a friend’. In the 1990s a very talented local architect bought the house and transformed it from an unsurprising, Victorian end-of-terrace house into a largely open-plan space with several levels and hard materials throughout. He had knocked through the once pokey and dark hallway, creating a mezzanine which overlooks the lower-ground sitting room beneath it. This space now enjoys double-height ceilings at one end and a cosy snug at the other. Off the hallway, floating somewhere in between the two levels, the kitchen runs the length of the house. ‘I was blown away. There was something special going on in the minimalist architecture and the use of materials such as concrete and stone. Fast forward 20 years and he had sold it to a client who was knocking on our door asking us to do it up for them. I couldn’t believe it,’ he says.
Such is Nicholas’ respect for the house that he has personified it, referring often to ‘what the house wants’ and ‘the house liking’ things. It was only right that the duo should take their cues from the architecture. ‘You have to allow the house to speak to you,’ he says. With the exception of wanting more light, which called for a wall in the kitchen to be replaced with crittall windows looking onto an internal courtyard, and a larger upstairs bathroom which involved joining two together, the house did not want any structural changes, so it was on the look and feel of the spaces that Nicholas and Sophie focused.
‘The architect had used lots of hard finishes and we wanted to respect that but also find a way to unify all of the different levels. We decided to work with just a handful of materials and use them throughout to create harmony,’ he explains. With this in mind, they installed Italian terrazzo tiles on the floor of the courtyard, which wrap around the kitchen and into the shower room on the ground floor. The same tiles have been used in the lightwell outside the lower-ground floor window and in the shower room upstairs. Picking up on the brutalist-style concrete in the hallway, concrete basins were added to the bathroom upstairs and oak on the floors and joinery unifies the ground and lower-ground levels.
‘We wanted to soften the materials a bit and break up the hard lines in the house,’ explains Sophie. The duo carefully incorporated different shapes and geometric lines to provide visual relief from the otherwise angular space. In the kitchen, this manifests in curved plasterwork which sits in relief on the walls and reeded fronts of the oak kitchen cupboards. Above the dining table hangs a glicée print by the California-based, English artist Andy Burgess, hailed the ‘Hockney of architectural painting’, whose shapes and lines are bright, uplifting and perfectly suited to the space. A bench upholstered in a monochrome zig-zag fabric by fashion designers Eley Kishimoto performs a similar role.
Aesthetics aside, it was essential that each room should feel comfortable. Subtle layers of textiles and finishes help to achieve a sense of softness, which includes a bouclé on the bespoke sofa which wraps around the sitting room, the tactile wallpaper on the ceiling in the low-ceilinged snug (‘this really accentuates the darkness and makes it feel cosy,’ says Sophie), and a reeded wallcovering in the main bedroom upstairs.
Just as important was practicality, and in a house with a relatively small footprint and two growing children, that means making the most of every inch of space. Clever joinery provides ample storage in the kitchen, while the daughter’s bedroom in what was once the house’s garage has been reconfigured to allow for a mezzanine level. This now plays host to the bed, with a cosy sofa nestled underneath it. Bespoke shelving in here helps to keep mess at bay, with a delicate nod to the room’s resident in the ‘M’ outlined in the lines of the shelves.
Such is the duo’s ability to see the potential in areas most of us might neglect, a half-landing upstairs has been ingeniously transformed into what Sophie and Nicholas refer to as a ‘think-box’, which appears as if from nowhere with the simple opening of reeded glass doors which fold back to create a light-filled, sound-proof study-vestibule outside of the master bedroom.
For Nicholas and Sophie, the project has been a memorable one. Little did twenty-something Nicholas know, upon first encountering this marvellous house, that he’d one day work alongside his wife to give it a new lease of life. To maintain the essence of the house while bringing it firmly up to date – that is less fate than skill. And luckily these two have plenty of that.
Jasper Fry1/15Concrete dominates the entrance hall, which has a mezzanine overlooking the sitting room below. Hanging in the double height space beyond is Pinch's ‘Beata 5 cluster light’.
Jasper Fry2/15The artwork above the breakfast bar is a bespoke commission by the artist Dominic Denis.
Jasper Fry3/15The bench is upholstered in an an Eley Kishimoto print turned into a fabric collection with Kirkby Design.
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Jasper Fry5/15Nicholas and Sophie commissioned the artist Andy Burgess to create this pool scene for the project.
Jasper Fry6/15Edward Bulmer's ‘Inferior Grey’ on the walls combines with cupboards painted in ‘Picture Gallery Red’ and ‘Red Earth’, both Farrow & Ball, to make a rich yet balanced scheme.
Jasper Fry7/15Reeded cabinet fronts help to add texture in the kitchen.
Jasper Fry8/15Texture has been added to the walls of the main bedroom by the through a sisal wallcovering from Mark Alexander. The headboard, covered in a geometric fabric from Kirkby Design adds pattern.
Jasper Fry9/15Above the fireplace hangs a photograph taken by the owner, which Nicholas and Sophie had framed in a bespoke navy frame.
Jasper Fry10/15Flanking a pair of oval mirrors, wall lights from Chelsom echo the elongated shape. The basin is from KAST concrete, and picks up on the architectural materials used elsewhere in the house. The pink bath (from Bette in ‘Misty Pink’), combines with the colours elsewhere in the room to mimic those of the terrazzo tiles on the floor.
Jasper Fry11/15The ‘think-box’ was a bespoke creation which involved turning the disused landing space into a home office area for the owner. Joinery painted in Paint & Paper Library's ‘Grenache’ contrasts with the more neutral palette in the neighbouring rooms.
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Jasper Fry13/15In the daughter's bedroom, bespoke joinery offers not just a workspace but plenty of places to tidy away mess. Hidden in the shape of the cupboards (which are painted in ‘Porcelain V’ by Paint & Paper Library), is an M: a nod to the room's resident.
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Jasper Fry15/15Sophie and Nicholas.
