Place Maker
The rooms that Robert Kime designs are places of calm and they are always supremely comfortable. Prince Charles, who provided the foreword for Robert’s new interiors book says, ‘You often hear of people who are said to have “a good eye”, but Robert Kime’s must surely be one of the best.’
Clockwise from left: The scullery, with ancient stone sink, is where Robert likes to arrange flowers. The drawing room in Provence contains furnishings bought to create a faux-bucolic comfort. The antique ‘tartan’ textile used to cover the chair is Turkish. In the Victorian conservatory, hanging trumpets of datura flank a panel of Turkish and North African tiles, along with pelargoniums, lilies and a white grapevine.
Kime says it is essential that a house or room should convey a sense of safety and a feeling of permanence. It is also of importance that they resonate with the past, with real or imagined memories. For this reason, he uses furniture and antiques that bequeath their own layers of history, and fabrics that are either old, or seem ageless, or add hints of a wide, exotic world. In this way, by being associated with past and present, his rooms become timeless.
From left: In one of Robert’s commissions, the double doors at the end of the room can close on the day bed to make a private bedroom. A fragment of Persian carpet covers the table on the right. The dresser in Robert’s Provence kitchen is in its original blue paint and holds a colourful collection of plates.
‘A room’, says Robert, ‘should represent the absent owner, its arrangement is the owner’s memory. The association of people with things is important and romantic; it is to do with what they value.’
From left: A brass chandelier lights the practical kitchen, with scrubbed pine table and set of Windsor chairs. In the master bedroom, the quarter-tester bed was made by Robert.
His clients come from many backgrounds and include the Prince of Wales, for whom he worked at Highgrove, St James’s Palace and Clarence House, as well as figures from the world of show business. Even a friend, who called him to help with her (fully furnished) drawing room. In one morning, armed with a mirror, two pictures and three strong men, he rearranged the room and the owner ‘couldn’t believe the amazing change that had been achieved, since it was exactly what was wanted’.
The chair in the Provence house library is covered in Art Deco velvet.
As Robert himself puts it, ‘I create the ideal room that never existed’.
Robert Kime, by Alastair Langlands, with foreword by HRH The Prince of Wales (Frances Lincoln, £40).
Clockwise from left: The scullery, with ancient stone sink, is where Robert likes to arrange flowers. The drawing room in Provence contains furnishings bought to create a faux-bucolic comfort. The antique ‘tartan’ textile used to cover the chair is Turkish. In the Victorian conservatory, hanging trumpets of datura flank a panel of Turkish and North African tiles, along with pelargoniums, lilies and a white grapevine.Kime says it is essential that a house or room should convey a sense of safety and a feeling of permanence. It is also of importance that they resonate with the past, with real or imagined memories. For this reason, he uses furniture and antiques that bequeath their own layers of history, and fabrics that are either old, or seem ageless, or add hints of a wide, exotic world. In this way, by being associated with past and present, his rooms become timeless.
From left: In one of Robert’s commissions, the double doors at the end of the room can close on the day bed to make a private bedroom. A fragment of Persian carpet covers the table on the right. The dresser in Robert’s Provence kitchen is in its original blue paint and holds a colourful collection of plates.‘A room’, says Robert, ‘should represent the absent owner, its arrangement is the owner’s memory. The association of people with things is important and romantic; it is to do with what they value.’
From left: A brass chandelier lights the practical kitchen, with scrubbed pine table and set of Windsor chairs. In the master bedroom, the quarter-tester bed was made by Robert.His clients come from many backgrounds and include the Prince of Wales, for whom he worked at Highgrove, St James’s Palace and Clarence House, as well as figures from the world of show business. Even a friend, who called him to help with her (fully furnished) drawing room. In one morning, armed with a mirror, two pictures and three strong men, he rearranged the room and the owner ‘couldn’t believe the amazing change that had been achieved, since it was exactly what was wanted’.
The chair in the Provence house library is covered in Art Deco velvet.As Robert himself puts it, ‘I create the ideal room that never existed’.
Robert Kime, by Alastair Langlands, with foreword by HRH The Prince of Wales (Frances Lincoln, £40).