VIBRANT
FAMILY HOME
Interior architecture
CITY | HAMPSTEAD HEATH
The clients came to us for a colour consultation. That is where it began. They began in a house that did not feel like them. They ended in one that could not feel like anyone else.
LOCATION: Hampstead Heath, London
PROJECT TYPE: Two-phase project. Phase 1: full house interior design. Phase 2: interior architecture and structural replanning of children’s floor and study.
SCOPE: Interior Design · Colour and Fabric Consultation · Interior Architecture · Structural Engineering Coordination · Spatial Planning · Bespoke Joinery and Upholstery · Lighting Redesign · Sustainable Sourcing · Project Management
Their Victorian semi-detached house, steps from Hampstead Heath, had already been reworked structurally: the ground floor opened and extended, bathrooms added, a generous master suite in the roof. The architecture was working hard. What the house lacked entirely was a sense of itself. Everything was white, plain and waiting. A family of five was living in a house that did not yet feel like them.
What followed was not a grand vision delivered in one sweep. It was something more considered, and in the end more complete: a room-by-room reworking, built on a road map of ideas developed slowly, in close conversation with the family, and carried out in phases over fifteen months, while they remained in the house throughout. We worked methodically from floor to floor, touching every room: colour, wallpaper, joinery, lighting, window treatments, bespoke upholstery, radiators replaced and repainted, lost architectural features carefully reinstated. The children’s floor was structurally reconfigured to give three daughters three rooms of genuinely equal size. A forgotten bathroom became a fully functioning home trading office with its own private terrace.
The result was not the product of a single bold gesture. It was the product of patience, precision, and the particular trust that builds when a client watches you work carefully, phase by phase, and keeps asking you back. When every room has been touched, the colour, the light, the joinery, the fabric, the position of a door, the choice of a handle, the cumulative effect is a house wholly remade. Not through spectacle, but through the relentless consistency of many small decisions made well.
THE COLOUR
The first step in a project like this is to study and analyse all the spaces in the house. We consider the architecture and its details, the artwork and furniture, the materials, fabrics and rugs, the toys and accessories. Then we listen to the clients’ ideas, lifestyle and aspirations, and take the time to talk: sharing our reading of the spaces, proposing where we would add splashes of colour, where we might use texture, wallpaper or other materials.
Here we kept the ground floor and staircase walls white, to preserve the sense of light and air in the open-plan spaces, but installed bold patterned and textured wallpapers on every upper floor. Colour was introduced to woodwork, carpets, staircase runners and upholstery, and, in a detail that became one of our signatures on this project, to the radiators. Every radiator in the house was replaced and painted to integrate with the colour concept of its room. They read as considered design objects rather than functional necessities.
Yellow and pink were chosen as the accent thread that runs through the house in splashes, while shades of blue and green, combined with red and black, give vibrant variation and complement the clients’ artwork. Claudia’s approach is to curate a palette that feels organically grown rather than designed: varied and bold, yet consistent and complementary throughout.
“When I walk into every room in my home, I feel happiness. Claudia has created spaces and rooms that are beautiful and fun but also very practical for our family home.”
- Clients, Vibrant Family Home — Hampstead Heath
The living room
Formal living rooms for families with young children are a luxury that is hard to keep tidy. Here we re-engineered the entire room. We removed a window seat and installed a new radiator to match the existing one. The architectural features had been lost over the decades, so cornicing and a ceiling rose were reinstated. New lighting circuits were wired for the bookcases and the central chandelier. New wallpaper and carpet went in throughout. Our carpenter updated the existing joinery to hide toys and gadgets, with bookcases resized and doors added for proper storage. We moved an existing mirror to another room and rewired the fireplace wall to install a mirror television that unclutters the bookcases. Finally we designed a bespoke sofa and sourced vintage furniture and lighting to finish the scheme.
Every decision in this room was made in relation to all the others. The result is a space that looks as though it came together over years of accumulated good taste, which is precisely the effect that takes the most considered effort to achieve.
The children’s floor
The children’s floor was the most demanding spatial challenge in the project, and the one that brought the clients back for Phase 2. Three girls needed three rooms of genuinely equal size, not approximately equal but properly equal, plus a dedicated walk-in store for the practical overflow of a family of five. We worked with structural engineers to ensure that moving walls and creating new doorways safely preserved the integrity of the Victorian structure. We left no option unexplored and no measurement unchecked, to make the best use of every inch.
The girls were closely involved in the colour and fabric choices for their rooms. Each was allowed to reflect her own preferences, while we kept a harmonious flow between the spaces. Each room has a dominant colour, but all of those colours reappear in larger and smaller dashes in the rooms on either side. That is the secret to the balance between harmony and individuality. Every room has a bespoke built-in sliding wardrobe, colour-coordinated and generous, and beds with integrated trundle and storage for the essential sleepovers.
The furniture and materials were chosen with the long view in mind: beds, desks, chairs, shelving and storage of a quality and design equally at home in a toddler’s room or a graduate’s. The bespoke eiderdown bedcovers were made to last a lifetime. Choose once, choose well: that is sustainable design not as a policy position but as a practical philosophy.
THE STUDY
The main study needed to move as part of the Phase 2 restructuring: the front room had been repurposed as a child’s bedroom, and working from home had become a genuine daily requirement. We identified a former shower room at the rear of the house with an untapped asset, a roof-terrace balcony that had never been used. By borrowing ceiling height from the boiler store above, we made an impressively tall study and installed a Velux roof light. What had been a cramped, unloved wet room became a fully functioning home trading office with its own private terrace, bold floral wallpaper and Vitsoe shelving.
The father can now work from home properly, in a dedicated space that separates work from family life in a house where both happen under one roof. That improvement in daily rhythm rippled through the whole household. The Vitsoe shelving was chosen deliberately for its adaptability: it can be reconfigured, moved or repurposed entirely as the family’s needs change. That kind of investment is, in itself, a form of sustainability.
THE FORGOTTEN ROOMS
Every house has rooms that accumulate rather than function. The guest bedroom was replanned so the bed is now centred on the chimney breast as the focal point, with a bespoke headboard designed to its proportions and two matching wardrobes flanking it. A dedicated desk area, for homework, sewing and eventually piano practice, gives the room a second purpose. It is not merely a guest room. It is a quiet room that happens to accommodate guests.
SUSTAINABLE DESIGN
Sustainability was not an afterthought on this project. It was central to the brief. The clients asked us to prioritise suppliers with a low carbon footprint, and we took that seriously at every stage. British-made furniture and lighting throughout, with an emphasis on traditionally hand-crafted sofas. All soft furnishings in natural materials: wool, cotton, linen, feather and down. Wherever possible, existing pieces were upcycled, cleaned and restored rather than replaced. Vintage furniture and lighting were sourced to give beautifully crafted objects a new lease of life.
The Eames lounge chair in the garden room is not a new purchase. It is, like the best things in this house, a piece chosen once and chosen well.
CITY
Urban Sophistication
Surf
Coastal Serenity
Ski
Alpine Craft
Every home begins with a conversation.
Every project begins with a conversation.
If you are considering a home and would like to talk through your ideas, we would be glad to hear from you.