Home Help: 31 May
The huge variety of furnishings and paint colours available today can be overwhelming. And while it is fashionable to mix and match, it is important to be sensitive with your decoration so as not to overwhelm the original architecture of your property.
Consequently, it’s useful to seek inspiration from the past, as reflected by some of Britain’s loveliest homes.
These three houses can all be visited, and beautifully reflect the decorative mores of their times…
Sir John Soane’s Museum
Architect John Soane was an interior designer before the job title even existed. His beautiful 1813 London house survives complete with all his possessions and it is currently undergoing a £7m restoration, showcasing his fabulous collection of classical artefacts and paintings. Originally, the house was decorated in pink, yellow, bright green and skyblue hues, and many of the rooms are to be redecorated in these authentic colours.
The library, which contains 30,000 drawings and an extraordinary collection of architecture and design books, is also open to visitors.
Sir John Soane’s Museum, 13 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London WC2: 020-7405 2107, www.soane.org
Sunnycroft
This late-Victorian villa – and its demesne – survives unchanged, and is now run by the National Trust, who bought the property because so many similar villas have been destroyed or altered beyond all recognition.
Design highlights include the coloured-glass roof tiles, gas wall lights, and parquetand encaustic-tiled floors. The 31 May 2013 paint colours are original, too. The fixtures and fittings bought and installed by the original Victorian family – from washbasins and lavatories to furniture – are all in their intended place, too.
Sunnycroft, 200 Holyhead Road, Wellington, Telford, Shropshire: 01952-242884, www.nationaltrust.org.uk
The Homewood
The dream home of Patrick Gwynne, architect of the Serpentine restaurant and actor Laurence Harvey’s house, is the apogee of Modernist taste.
Modernism wasn’t wholeheartedly embraced by the British, but light floods through glass-brick walls, and the large rooms, with marbleand fabric-covered feature walls, are divided by white screens. The drawing-room furniture, by Eames and other modern makers, is lightweight so it can be pushed back to make way for dancing on the sprung maple floor.
Homewood, Portsmouth Road, Esher, Surrey: 01372- 476424, www.nationaltrust.org.uk
Main imae above Eames chair and ottoman, in the living room at The Homewood, Surrey
Clockwise from left
Gaslight (converted to electricity in 1947) in staircase hall and Maw & Co tassellated tiled floor (a mixture of plain, vitreous and encaustic tiles) both at Sunnycroft, in Shropshire
The South Drawing Room, painted in Turner’s Patent Yellow, at Sir John Soane’s Museum in London
Email your design enquiries to Hugh St Clair at homehelp@lady.co.uk
Consequently, it’s useful to seek inspiration from the past, as reflected by some of Britain’s loveliest homes.
These three houses can all be visited, and beautifully reflect the decorative mores of their times…
Sir John Soane’s Museum
Architect John Soane was an interior designer before the job title even existed. His beautiful 1813 London house survives complete with all his possessions and it is currently undergoing a £7m restoration, showcasing his fabulous collection of classical artefacts and paintings. Originally, the house was decorated in pink, yellow, bright green and skyblue hues, and many of the rooms are to be redecorated in these authentic colours.
The library, which contains 30,000 drawings and an extraordinary collection of architecture and design books, is also open to visitors.
Sir John Soane’s Museum, 13 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London WC2: 020-7405 2107, www.soane.org
Sunnycroft
This late-Victorian villa – and its demesne – survives unchanged, and is now run by the National Trust, who bought the property because so many similar villas have been destroyed or altered beyond all recognition.
Design highlights include the coloured-glass roof tiles, gas wall lights, and parquetand encaustic-tiled floors. The 31 May 2013 paint colours are original, too. The fixtures and fittings bought and installed by the original Victorian family – from washbasins and lavatories to furniture – are all in their intended place, too.
Sunnycroft, 200 Holyhead Road, Wellington, Telford, Shropshire: 01952-242884, www.nationaltrust.org.uk
The Homewood
The dream home of Patrick Gwynne, architect of the Serpentine restaurant and actor Laurence Harvey’s house, is the apogee of Modernist taste.
Modernism wasn’t wholeheartedly embraced by the British, but light floods through glass-brick walls, and the large rooms, with marbleand fabric-covered feature walls, are divided by white screens. The drawing-room furniture, by Eames and other modern makers, is lightweight so it can be pushed back to make way for dancing on the sprung maple floor.
Homewood, Portsmouth Road, Esher, Surrey: 01372- 476424, www.nationaltrust.org.uk
Main imae above Eames chair and ottoman, in the living room at The Homewood, Surrey
Clockwise from left
Gaslight (converted to electricity in 1947) in staircase hall and Maw & Co tassellated tiled floor (a mixture of plain, vitreous and encaustic tiles) both at Sunnycroft, in Shropshire
The South Drawing Room, painted in Turner’s Patent Yellow, at Sir John Soane’s Museum in London
Email your design enquiries to Hugh St Clair at homehelp@lady.co.uk