Tom Griffiths
Corey had always wanted to live in a 1960s house. As the former head of prime sales at The Modern House, she spent a decade working with architecture from that period. ‘I knew there were some incredible ex-Lambeth council buildings from then around here,’ says Corey. ‘As soon as I saw the unusual yellow brick of this terrace, originally designed by architect Ted Hollamby, I knew it would be the house of my dreams.’ She was right: it had ample light, pleasing proportions and, crucially, huge potential. Having been in the same family since the mid-1960s, it was long overdue for an overhaul, with UPVC windows, asbestos tiles on the ground floor, and thick, shaggy carpets upstairs. But it also had enticing original features, such as a concrete and stone lintel in the old garage. ‘I’d never seen that in this type of building before,’ she says. ‘I made my offer on the spot.’
The butter-yellow cabinetry in the kitchen was designed by Tilly Hemingway. The oak shelves are decorated with ceramics Corey sourced on a recent trip to Sifnos, Greece, as well as French glassware and vintage teak bowls.
Tom Griffiths
Five months later, Corey began the renovation. She pulled up the carpets to reveal pink-hued pine floors, their colours preserved by old newspaper spreads of pin-up girls. ‘They were quite sexy,’ she laughs, ‘but underneath the floorboards were immaculate.’ Once the pine was exposed, Corey turned to her sister, Tilly Hemingway, founder of Interiors by Hemingway, to design a scheme to complement it. The resulting palette is defined by natural materials – warm woods and cool clay tiles – bespoke, space-maximising joinery and playful pastels: butter yellow, powder blue, lilac and dusty pink. ‘My sister knows me better than anyone, so she could say: “These are your colours,”’ says Corey. ‘The colours you see in the house are the colours I often wear.’
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