On the floor above is an elegant sitting room with three sets of doors leading out onto balconies – two facing the street and one overlooking the back garden – with a serene study on the half landing. Upstairs, on the second floor, there is a palatial dressing room with bespoke cabinets in a deep red. This deliciously indulgent space leads, through a hidden mirrored door, to the main bedroom – one of five – which has a particularly calm feel. ‘The owners wanted the interiors to be energetic and exciting,’ says Angus. ‘But we always try to make the bedrooms serene. This is their cloud-like cocoon.’ At the room’s epicentre is a bed sheathed by sheer curtains on a sweeping rail, enhancing the ethereal mood. This show-stopping take on a four-poster is testament to the fact that Angus started his professional life as a set designer.
The walls in the upstairs sitting room are painted in Farrow & Ball’s ‘Setting Plaster’. The curtains in McLaurin & Piercy’s ‘Batak’ cotton in brick provide an elegant backdrop for a sofa in Tibor’s copper ‘Luna’ wool mix – with cushions in Buchanan Studio striped fabrics – and antique armchairs sourced on Vinterior and re-covered in Dedar velvet. They are teamed with Buchanan Studio’s ‘Daydream Shape’ side table and an Arabescato marble coffee table on a Nordic Knots rug. The pendant light is from Vaughan.
‘It’s a house with lots of unexpected turns,’ says Angus. A case in point is the shell-encrusted first-floor cloakroom created by specialist artist Katherine Lloyd. Every inch of the bijou room is covered in deep-sea treasures, sea glass and semi-precious stones. Painstakingly applied by Katherine, the shellwork has a dynamic, undulating pattern that includes a favourite Buchanan Studio motif – the stripe.
The mews house across the garden is a further surprise that tells its own design story. The two-bedroom space, used for guests, includes a large sitting room with raw plaster walls, natural materials and salvaged Victorian doors, which lend warmth and patina. The pale pink of the sitting room gives way to an emerald bedroom with an enveloping burgundy bathroom. ‘It is quite a colour shock,’ says Angus of the jewelled palette, which takes guests on a Pantone journey.
Curtains in Yarn Collective wool, with a Houlès trim, envelop a bespoke end-of-bed ottoman in Tibor’s ‘Otto’ sumac wool mix in the main bedroom. The brass rail and a mirror from Norfolk Decorative Antiques add metallic accents.
Christopher Horwood
This is no longer a case of maximalist owners inhabiting a minimalist home, as the Buchanan Studio team has skilfully conjured a distinctive and beautifully embellished backdrop for every aspect of their way of life. ‘It has pops of theatricality, but it’s also comfortable and liveable,’ says Angus of the house’s newly energised, idiosyncratic form.
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