How to get a new home without changing address
Living through the pandemic has made us reassess and in some cases resent our homes and how we use them. On the Rightmove website earlier this year, home-hunting enquiries were up 22 per cent on the same time last year, suggesting that many of us are considering an upgrade. But what if you’ve fallen out of love with your home yet you’re not able to move? According to interior designers Bunny Turner and Emma Pocock, there’s a lot you can do to make it feel like a completely different place, without the stress and expense of buying and selling. Here are their tips.
Reconsider your layout
The classic treatment for a lower-ground-floor space is a kitchen flowing into dining and sitting areas, but here the owners needed more room for themselves and their children to work. Turner and Pocock created a dining area that opens out to the garden, adding roof lights and Crittall doors to maximise light. The kitchen is in the middle of the space, and at the back of the room is a second seating area that has a different feel to the dining zone, with a round table, more banquette seating and dark-painted cabinetry. This set-up gives the family a choice of places to sit, work and eat.
The banquette is by David Seyfried, covered in a fabric by Chase Erwin. Cabinets are painted in Black Blue by Farrow & Ball, the handles are by Armac Martin and the pendant lights are by Visual Comfort. The dining chairs are from Julian Chichester.
Always include built-in storage
‘People forget about the cost of built-in storage when they’re pricing up building works,’ says Pocock. ‘We would tell them not to start until they’ve got the budget (for example, expect to pay around £3,000 for the joinery in this room). Storage is what makes a house liveable. You can make it look pretty, but if it’s full of all of your family’s stuff everywhere, with nowhere to put it, it’s ruined instantly.
From a design perspective and for practicality, it’s so important.’ If you’re installing cabinetry in more than one room, Pocock recommends picking a unifying style or detail, such as handles, and using it throughout to bring a feeling of continuity.
Knocking down walls is so pre-pandemic
The temptation with two reception rooms on the ground floor is to knock through to create one airy space, but in this case separate rooms have been retained so family members can be apart from one another when needed. There’s a sunny sitting room at the front and a dark, cosy TV snug behind it. The Crittall internal window between the rooms is a design feature in itself and lets light flow through.
‘Embrace the light in a space,’ says Turner. ‘We’ll maximise light in a south-facing room, but we often make dark spaces darker. In a north-facing room, or one with a small window, we’ll choose a deep-coloured paint like the one we used here (Farrow & Ball’s Green Smoke).’
Be creative with wallpaper
Adding a wallpaper instantly brings magic to a room – particularly one with a fantastical feel, such as this Mythical Land mural by Kit Kemp for Andrew Martin. ‘The owner wanted it to feel fabulous,’ says Turner, ‘so she was happy to go for it.’ A mural like this can be expensive, but there’s no need for further decoration on the walls.
If all that pattern feels too much, try wallpapering the ‘fifth wall’ instead – a good idea for a child’s bedroom. ‘People can sometimes be a bit reticent to put wallpaper in children’s rooms, as they think it’s a bit extravagant and they’ll grow out of it, so we’ll often suggest putting it on the ceiling instead,’ says Pocock. It’s also a clever way to save on budget, while still having the impact that pattern can bring to a room.
Use every inch
If there’s an unused corner in your house, turn it into a nook, and make it functional. This dressing-table area occupies a space at the end of a corridor, between the bedroom and bathroom. ‘The owner works in the theatre, so it was inspired by a backstage dressing room, with lights set into the mirror. It looks very theatrical at night,’ says Pocock. Carving out a space such as this helps to give everyday rituals a luxurious twist.
Top five decor tips
By Bunny Turner and Emma Pocock
Paint all internal doors in a dark colour – we like Squid Ink by Paint & Paper Library, and Studio Green or Railings by Farrow & Ball. This sounds scary but in reality looks very smart, transforms a house and becomes a neutral.
It helps to have a feeling of continuity running through all rooms. The woodwork colour should be the same throughout the house, and choose one neutral wall colour that you can repeat in different rooms. We like to paint the woodwork in one or two shades lighter or darker than the walls.
Stick to one type of metal finish for your lights and handles, either silver (chrome, stainless steel or nickel) or gold (brass). A brown-bronze metal finish can go with silver or gold finishes, but they cannot work together.
A low-level source of lighting such as a table lamp at each corner of a room will change the feel at night.
Create a striking first impression by wallpapering your hall. You can go quite wild, as it’s not a room you sit in. Painting the woodwork in a colour that goes with the paper also looks fabulously brave.
Bright on the tiles
Here, the use of marble on the floor and worktop, combined with the splash of colour in the deep-turquoise fish-scale tiles in the shower, make a decorative statement without overdoing pattern and colour. The bronze taps and black wall lights, mirror and cabinet handles add edge to the look, and plenty of storage keeps clutter to a minimum.
Make a small room feel special
This spare room is on the small side, so rather than shoehorn a traditional bedroom layout into it, the designers chose a creative approach. ‘There wasn’t room for a bed that people could get in and out of from both sides, so we thought let’s make it feel amazing in a different way,’ says Pocock.
The positioning of the bed gives guests a view of the garden, and the curtain makes it feel like a mini four-poster. The niche built into the cavity wall above the bed is a neat trick that does away with the need for a bedside table in a small area, and the wall light takes the place of a table lamp – again, saving on precious space.
Professional advice for less
If your budget won’t stretch to the full interior design and installation service, some designers offer advice and consultation packages, whereby they will look at your house via photographs or video call, and offer tips on how to make the best use of the space.
In some cases, room plans and shopping lists will be provided. Although you’ll need to source and project-manage the job yourself, it can be a good way of getting ideas. Try virtual services such as mybespokeroom.com (from £195) and zoomthatroom.com (from £90).
Give your home a new lease of life
Clockwise from left: King-size four-poster bed, from £699, The Original Bed Co; Pine refectory table, £953, Sweetpea & Willow; Swing-arm wall light, £59, Made; Mango-wood and iron stool, £160, Nkuku; Bathroom wall light, £35, Dunelm; Holland armchair, £765, Soho Home ; Tassel cushion, £45, Graham and Green; Velvet X-Bench, £745, Jonathan Adler;
