Inside Lucinda Chambers' personality-filled London house | Design Notes

I think I probably dress like my house, for sure.

Or my house looks like me.

[jazz music]

We've lived in this house for a very long time.

I think we moved here 30 years ago

just as Simon and I were getting married.

And, you know, it's fluctuated from being

very very full to full of teenagers

to relatively now sailing into very calm waters.

I think we are looking for somewhere with a garden.

It's really unusual to find a five bedroom house, you know

relatively central with a lovely garden.

So you do feel that there is a touch

of the countryside when you are in here.

I was very lucky to live in a squat for five years.

It was a very wonderful way of living in London.

We had lots of friends coming and going.

Quite wild times but very memorable times.

And I squirreled away each paycheck that came, money

so that I could save up to buy a flat.

And I bought a tiny converted cafe in Fulham.

And then I sold that, when I sold that

I moved to Shepherd's Bush

and lived in the road opposite here and then sold that.

And we bought here when we first got together.

We moved 18 times before I was 18.

So hence that's probably the reason why we've lived here

for 30 years.

I've never moved out.

[jazz music]

This room started as a real kind of family room.

It was the boys nurseries, and now it's kind of TV room.

And then this is also if we're working from home,

this is where I work from with the fountain tinkling outside

which is always very restful.

I didn't really have any strong ideas about color

and I said to my youngest son, who at that time loved LEGO,

what colors should I paint this?

He dressed all like LEGO.

He actually says, how could you have let me

out of the house looking like that now

but he chose a bright LEGO yellow

for the top and then a kind of

firefly kind of watermelony color for the walls.

I thought I'll go with that. That's fine.

What was wonderful about starting Colville is I started it

with my partner, Molly Malloy, and you know,

we just love design.

It's about faux dimensional,

you know, whether it's on the body or whether it's

for home and really inspiration can come from anywhere.

I mean like this vase I'm holding,

you know, we went bowling

and I've never been bowling before.

And it just, this bowling ball felt so fantastic.

I was like, Molly we've gotta do a vase,

like a bowling ball.

We've just done a collection with Conran

and we did these cushions and tablecloths

and napkins and vases and rugs.

Our super shag rug is Colville as well.

So color is always involved and texture

is an absolute passion of all of ours, really.

[jazz music]

The kitchen when we came was a sliver

but with an Argo

which was fantastic, bright red.

The brilliant thing about having an Argo

is Argo's are fantastic if you're a really good cook

or a really bad one.

I'm definitely in the latter.

I knew that we wanted to put,

to make it much lighter and also sort of build out a lot.

And it took me ages.

And actually it was the sort of project I did on,

when I got on planes.

'Cause during those days I traveled a lot, a lot

and on each plane journey did I sort of,

would draw each side of the kitchen

and where I wanted, like if I'd built the plate rack

and then where would the plugs go?

And so it was, you know, quite a long time in,

work in progress.

But I think, I think what's brilliant if, if you do any sort

of change or building work is,

to get every single detail down

until you know exactly what knob you're gonna push

on that cupboard.

I should change the furniture here because as I'm looking

at the kitchen table, it's on books

because it's too low.

So if I was a real perfectionist, I would say

let's get a kitchen table

that actually is the right height.

Things have to reach quite a critical mass

for me to change it.

I mean, literally, the wallpaper has to be slightly falling

off the walls.

I sort of don't really do things

just for the sake of change.

I think I do things when I want to change.

There's a lot of postcards on the wall.

I mean, kids do such amazing art

and every time they did a thank you letter or a lovely

you know, godchild did something, you've gotta put it up.

You know, you've got to give them a shoutout

and I just love the mix of all their drawings

and you know, there's my children's drawings and...

Do you know what it's like every time you

walk into the kitchen, you just have like a little

snapshot of memories and nice times that everybody's had.

[jazz music]

I love this room because to me,

this is a family room and it's where we've had

the best parties, with people

making wonderful speeches and, you know,

real family sort of occasions.

When I think what my happy place is,

is probably to be in a market.

And, you know, I've been very fortunate in my career

where I've literally been able to shop around

the world in,

not in ritzy, fancy shops, but in markets.

So, you know, I can see a Mork and hat there

that I got in Morocco, which I actually used to wear

all the time.

I can see things that I got from

Paris flea markets, from African flea markets.

Things resonate with me

on a sort of, very personal level because it reminds me

of the happy times that we've had or we're going to have.

I mean, I think it was Diana Vreeland

who said the eye has to travel.

And I think I really took that on board.

Definitely.

My mother had a portrait done of her

by quite a famous, kind of like a society portrait

artist of the day, Robert Halladay.

And it was huge.

And it was beautiful.

She wore an amazing dress with a rose on it

and she had her nails done.

She said she'd never had such good nails.

And pretty recently just before [indistinct]

she cutup, she cut the head out of it.

And, she said nobody wants a great big old portrait of me.

It was really beautiful.

I think it was on the cover of Tatler maybe,

but from the portrait was that charcoal drawing

that, she really loved it actually.

So I'm very happy to have that.

This is our bedroom.

And actually when we first moved in, Simon

my husband, drew on the back of an envelope

a kind of slightly Moroccan scallopy

situation.

Cupboard situation.

Then a wonderful friend of mine, Zoe Beto was fidling around

in her flat with these little mirrored pieces.

And I thought, wouldn't that be incredible to

have a fireplace, just with little tiny shards of mirror.

And she just did it and it's lasted so well.

Also we drew these cupboards

and I could use up all my old fabrics.

I don't know what sort

of house I imagined I was going to live in when

I was sort of 12, but I started collecting curtains when

when I was a teenager or even younger, they either get made

into lunches or cushions or in this case

they just sit behind the cupboards.

This I love because my son had it made for my last birthday.

And he had it made

in Morocco where he's living in Marrakesh.

And you know

I always think every surface is a, is either a color

a color opportunity or a pattern opportunity.

So I was so happy with this.

It's just beautiful.

I started to collect photography quite early on

and then I've been, you know

it's been really amazing to work

with some of these photographers that I really admired.

And some that I, you know, just admire their work very much.

This one's by Sheila Mesner a photographer

that I worked very often

with and she does the most incredible, still lives.

And that I think is beautiful.

It's like a it's painting

but it's a photograph and it's wonderful.

And this one's by Javier Valhonrat and it's

of a particularly favorite model of mine,

Guinevere van Seenus.

So I didn't actually style this

but I love this image so much.

And then this is a very iconic picture.

It's Malik who sadly passed away quite recently.

And again, it's joyous, it's two coup it's a couple dancing

and bare feet and just so unaware of the camera.

And then a few

of them are from Kempton market for two pounds.

But I think a lot

of the time with pictures that I've been drawn to

it's about seeing them out of context.

So I think that's probably about everything really.

I think see everything out of its context

and with its own space and surrounded

by breath is always a good way to go.

I think it's really hard to achieve any sort of start.

And actually, I probably think that's

about houses as well is I don't think a house

or a person can be really stylish

unless they're incredibly comfortable.

I think you don't really see somebody if they can't walk

on a high heel for me, that's an equivalent

of you can't sit on a sofa and fling your feet up on it.

I think comfort is really underrated

and all the people I know who are very stylish

and all the houses that I really admire comfort

is pretty high up on the older ratings list there.

Yep. We always have people staying.

And the nicest thing that people say is

it's the coziest house.

So actually for me, that is the biggest compliment.