A supremely liveable Georgian house in the Home Counties that marries traditional English style and Asian design

Although the client applied for some minor cosmetic tweaks to the fabric of the building, the listing made things difficult to change. ‘It was really tricky with the council and the planning,’ Elizabeth recalls. ‘We even had to get permission to change a wardrobe, things like that. So it was mostly a very light renovation.’ Elizabeth did make a couple of changes, such as replacing wall-to-wall carpet in the large drawing room with a new, dark wood floor. However, it became clear that the design would really sing through the objects and patterned textiles that would furnish the space, not least because the client had collected and sold antique linens for department store Liberty for decades.

On the wall up the stairs, where some families might have hung photos, Elizabeth displayed the client’s collection of perspex-framed Indian ceremonial textiles, in the process telling the visual story of a lifetime in an unusual way. Antiques acquired by the client in Singapore were incorporated into the design scheme, many of them reupholstered after years spent in the rainforest humidity of the city’s tropical climate. ‘She wanted it to be cozy and feel like she was in England,’ says Elizabeth, ‘but also incorporating all of her furniture and her art from Asia that she'd collected.’

The armchair in the sitting room is upholstered in ‘Tangier’ in Campari by Guy Goodfellow (‘They do the best weaves!’ says Elizabeth). The sofa is in Le Manach’s ‘Concini’ in Fleur Rouge. The walls are painted in Edward Bulmer’s ‘Ethereal Blue’.

Jonathan Bond Photography

In places, this led to unexpected design synergies and serendipities: a Murano glass chandelier mirrored in a dragon-motif lamp in an upstairs bedroom, for example, or a particularly apt use of rattan, that most Singaporean of materials, amidst traditional country house bedroom schemes. Above the grand English mantelpiece in the drawing room hangs a painting by an Asian artist, with a lacquered Chinese coffee table nearby, while Indian miniature paintings abound throughout the house.

From a practical perspective, the client also wanted to be able to host large gatherings including with her children and their partners, but on a day-to-day basis she expected to live there more cosily, with just her husband for company. This meant that the house had to be spacious, with the potential for occasional grandeur, but with cosy nooks and liveable spaces to boot. ‘It was important that the house felt cosy and nice for when it was just her and her husband; that it didn't feel like they were rattling around in these huge rooms from a much bigger family.’ Elizabeth achieved this by creating smaller seating areas within rooms, such as the multifunctional drawing room, with its two different seating areas thanks to the back-to-back sofas; sitting in the smaller area by the fire, the room still feels intimate. There’s an alcove for breakfast at the smaller dining room in the same room. And the house is also still deceptively practical and liveable: the TV in the drawing room is disguised as a mirror, while the fridge is hidden in the bright red cupboard in the kitchen, because the room is visible through the arched doorway into the dining room.

The curtain is in ‘Milano Linen 504 Yellow’ from Claremont with a custom trim.

Jonathan Bond Photography

Upstairs, where the rooms feel ‘a bit more cottagey’, each of the bedrooms has a loose colour scheme and a distinct feel. The master bedroom is the calmest, as the client specifically requested a quieter and less intensely patterned space than the rest of the house, but an avocado-green guest bedroom and a tiny nook turned into a powder-blue wallpapered one are full of character. So is Elizabeth’s favourite room in the house, a yellow-green space with a distinct but understated aesthetic. It takes Sister Parish wallpaper as the starting point (‘It was something I had always wanted to use in a project’), with English-style floral print fabric and Chinese dragon lamps on the rattan and bamboo chest of drawers beside the bed. (There’s also an African kuba cloth bought at auction on the end of the bed for good measure.) ‘We’ve got Asian lamps, we’ve got quite English fabrics, American wallpaper,’ says Elizabeth. ‘I just love the mixture of everything together.’

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