A contemporary scheme for a Victorian house with plenty of details of copy
The decoration of this late-Victorian terrace in Queen’s Park began with two pieces of furniture: a Seventies travertine coffee table, bought for a small sum from the house’s previous owner, and an elegant, 19th-century Empire daybed. They sit beautifully together in the sitting room and shaped Deniz Bayern’s approach to the entire house. ‘They gave me the freedom to play with items from different periods,’ explains Deniz, who shares the three-bedroom house with her husband Konstantin and their six-month-old son Alexis. ‘There’s a bit of mid-century here and a bit of Victorian there,’ says the interior designer who, it soon becomes clear, has a knack for pulling together seemingly disparate pieces to create a harmonious whole.
Deniz and Konstantin bought the house in 2017. They were initially on the hunt in Notting Hill, but changed tack when they discovered Queen’s Park. ‘I loved the area and this place felt perfect,’ says Deniz. Arranged over two floors, it is classically Victorian in layout, with a double sitting room and kitchen on the ground floor and three bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs. The fact that the previous owners had painted everything white, while retaining the original wooden floors and cornices, made it the ideal blank canvas for Deniz.
‘This house has happened organically over time,’ says the designer, who started off by painting the sitting room in a grey-green from Farrow & Ball – the archive colour ‘Castle Gray’. It was a brave choice – especially since she could not even get her hands on a sample pot to test first – but it sets the tone for the rest of the house, which is decorated in a spectrum of blue, green and grey hues and reflects Deniz’s love for dark, moody colours.
Born in Turkey, Deniz moved to London in 2009 to take up a place on an art foundation course at Central Saint Martins, going on to study for a BA in Product and Industrial Design there. After graduating in 2014, she pursued her interest in interiors, enrolling on a year-long diploma course at KLC. Following this, she landed a job working for Fran Hickman, which led to stints on the design teams at Studio Reed and Soho House.
It was not until 2019 – the same year that Deniz launched her interior-design practice Studio Kaya – that the couple decided to make any significant changes to the house, including opening up the loft to create a studio space. ‘I wanted to get a feel for the house before we started knocking down any walls,’ Deniz explains. The first conundrum was how to enlarge the ground floor without creating an open-plan layout. Rather than extending into the side return, she opted to push out at the back by three metres and add bifold doors on two sides. ‘The design was inspired by Victorian glasshouses,’ Deniz says. The airy extension accommodates the dining room, two steps down from the kitchen and sharing its distinctive marble checkerboard floor.
Despite looking like an ‘intense white box’, the kitchen was in good condition. Deniz, keen to pick up the tones of the floor tiles, repainted the kitchen units grey and installed honed marble worktops. A new row of units, painted in a punchy shade of green and incorporating a little seating nook at one end, provides a splash of colour.
Upstairs, Deniz wanted to keep three bedrooms, while also carving out some space for an en-suite bathroom. She knocked down the wall dividing the main bedroom from a smaller bedroom, to create one long space and accommodate a main bedroom with an en-suite bathroom, and she stole a sliver from one end of the existing main bedroom to create a smaller double bedroom.
Painted in dark green, the main bedroom has a cocooning feel, with antique specimen chests used as bedside tables and seagrass squares underfoot. ‘I’m obsessed with natural materials – they are sprinkled throughout the house,’ she says, pointing out the dining room’s seagrass rug and cane chairs, and the jute rugs in the sitting room.
Much of the furniture is vintage or antique, with a few high-street rugs and accessories. ‘I like to decorate bit by bit,’ explains Deniz, whose favourite sources include The Hoarde, Decorative Collective and Retrouvius.
Her aversion to anything new extends to the en-suite bathroom, for which she fashioned a washstand from a serving table bought from Kernow Furniture. ‘The bobbin legs inspired the floor tiles,’ she explains, gesturing to the bold cement tiles from Popham Design underfoot. The white tiles that line the shower were a cost-efficient choice, but she was determined to make them as fun as possible, playfully arranging them in a diamond pattern. ‘I love doing something creative in a small space,’ says the designer, who is currently working mainly on residential projects and itching to create her own furniture line.
Deniz admits that she cannot help but continue to make changes to her house, but this, of course, is all part of its charm. ‘I love the idea that the space can evolve with us’.
Studio Kaya: studiokaya.co.uk
Paul Massey1/9The travertine coffee table belonged to the previous owner of the house and the mid-century armchairs are from Forest London. The walls are in Farrow & Ball’s ‘Castle Gray’.
Paul Massey2/9Geometric-print, wool mix curtains from Peter Jones divide the sitting room in two. The sofa is from Loaf and the small coffee table was bought at The Old Cinema.
Paul Massey3/9Deniz had the existing units repainted in a grey from the original manufacturer, Pronorm. The new units are painted in Valspar’s ‘Crocodile Style’ and teamed with rattan-wrapped handles from Anthropologie.
Paul Massey4/9Marble checkerboard tiles from Mandarin Stone continue into the dining area.
Paul Massey5/9The new rear extension has an antique dining table from Kernow Furniture and cane chairs from Deniz’s husband’s family in Germany.
Paul Massey6/9The washstand is made from a converted serving table, which Deniz bought from Kernow Furniture. Its bobbin legs inspired her choice of cement floor tiles by Popham Design. A wall light from Pooky sets off a vintage mirror from Retrouvius.
Paul Massey7/9Mandarin Stone supplied the wall tiles.
Paul Massey8/9Next to the bathroom door is a bench created from two Ikea tables, with a checked cover that was custom made in Turkey.
Paul Massey9/9The walls are painted in Valspar’s ‘Norway Spruce’. Old museum specimen cabinets, sourced from Martin D Johnson Antiques, make distinctive bedside tables.
