When the new owners of this Chelsea townhouse came into possession of it, they asked Harriette Cayzer and Anneke Gilkes of Taylor & Turner to soften it and bring out warmth in its interiors. It had been a very contemporary and spare space under the previous owners – beautiful and consciously designed, but not appropriate for the clients, who had a young family and wanted somewhere both to host and entertain, but also in which to escape from the bustle of the outside world.
The living space at the centre of the house was a focal point for this brief. None of the rooms in the house were square, this one included, and so the joinery in front of an angled section of wall was made bespoke, slightly deeper than its opposite number across the room, where the cabinet could sit flush. Other storage space was essential for ease of living, with a rack to store a record collection and a Julian Chichester freestanding pale blue bar incorporated into the space.
On the walls, fawn Pierre Frey “La Route de la Soie” silk in Ochre boasts a certain luminescence to its finish, which helps bounce light from the tall French doors through to the back of the room, as does the mirror over the Jamb “Ducal” fireplace (the mirror serves a second purpose in hiding a television). Its organic form is mirrored in the wings of a wingback armchair and in curved lamps on the cabinetry at either end of the room. The house came with unusual niches either side of the fireplace, in which further mirrors were placed to bounce more light into the room, though they were still slightly recessed to blend into the rest of the decoration scheme.
Texture plays a role as key as colour in the room, introducing variety at least as much as the colours of the various pieces of furniture. The sofa is from Sedilia and upholstered in a Mark Alexander velvet, with double-sided cushions that can be flipped between light and darker tones at will. The wingback chair has been upholstered in Rose Uniacke’s “Sand” fabric; coupled with the tactile silk wallpaper and the bouclé cover on the grey chairs opposite, plus the velvet on the sofa to boot, there are at least four major textures running through the furniture and furnishings.
The result is a multipurpose room which is both visually engaging and restful, where guests can be entertained and hosted with ease but which is soft and liveable enough for young children. Through colour and texture, it has been transformed into a calm and cosy space: exactly what the client specified.
