A palatial late-Victorian house in north London imbued with character by Lonika Chande

It was in the midst of reviving the first wave of rooms that a bolder and bigger vision for the property began to come to the fore – to relocate the original kitchen, replacing it with a playroom, and to rework the garden room at the back of the house to create an expansive dining and sitting room. This ambitious new layout, brought to life by Chris Dyson Architects and Miles Builders, beautifully blurs the boundaries between outside and in, and has paid dividends, since it has helped to bring the house into alignment with the family’s ever-evolving needs by creating space for togetherness or escape, as required.

‘It was completely transformative,’ says Lonika, who, together with her three-strong team, set about bringing Chris’s plan to decorative life. Today, the original, wonderfully refined main sitting room, with its chalky palette and french windows out onto the garden, connects to the new kitchen through glazed doors. The units and island by Herringbone House are in vibrant cinnamon and a deep mossy green, with the kitchen stairs leading down into a dramatically reinvented garden room. Instead of the wooden parquet flooring that runs throughout the remainder of the ground floor, the new garden room has polished concrete in a tangy terracotta red, which provides a fiery contrast to the serene views of the garden.

Blue zellige tiles from Mosaic Factory behind the wood-burning stove provide a cool foil to the red polished concrete floor. The 1960s bamboo and leather rocker is from Puckhaber.

Tom Griffiths

‘We wanted the new part of the house to have an entirely different feel,’ says Lonika. ‘So we really upped the ante in terms of tones and textures.’ The eclecticism that so often defines her interiors reaches its zenith in this enticing light-filled extension. The wood-burning stove is surrounded by blue zellige tiles, and the vast custom-made oak shelving displays an assortment of studio pottery, as well as a medley of antique ceramics and curios. It is a record of the owners’ peripatetic lives, gathered and exhibited in a way that is personal, unpretentious and adaptable. Many of these objects also served as a visual springboard for the textiles chosen for the bespoke ottoman and seating.

Glazed doors in Farrow & Ball’s ‘Cardamom’ lead to the colourful kitchen by Herringbone House, with its cabinetry in Papers & Paints’ ‘Traffic Light Green’ and an island in ‘Heat’ by Little Greene Paint & Paper.

Tom Griffiths

One of the key drivers throughout each phase of the project was the desire to use and adapt the owners’ existing furniture and objects. Their upholstered headboards and sofas were reinvigorated with colourful fabrics – often using the vintage kantha cloth that has become something of a signature for Lonika’s studio. ‘Textiles make a space feel lovely and layered,’ says the interior designer, who is drawn to earthier tones that have an unusual scale.

Lonika’s devotion to kantha stems from her own heritage. ‘My father is Indian and my mother [the English artist Lucy Dickens] used kantha in our homes. So these fabrics have always been part of my life. As a child, I remember thinking how clever it was that she reupholstered a chair in a kantha. It was quite unusual at the time.’ In this project, heritage textiles create a tactile thread that runs throughout the interior – from the kantha cloth cushions and throws found in the den and the clubby chair in the main bedroom covered in a deep blue and white Ghanaian kente cloth, to the Welsh blankets and Celtic throws in the other bedrooms.

Tom Griffiths

Equally noteworthy is Lonika’s thoughtful approach to children’s rooms. She is able to create spaces that brim with character, with elements of naiveté that stop short of being too infantile. For this house, rather than sourcing nursery-specific furnishings, she opted instead for vintage pieces that introduce an element of sophistication and visual interest. ‘Children’s rooms should have a playful energy, but in a way they can grow into,’ says Lonika.

That same sense of growth permeates every aspect of the project. ‘It all feels natural and true to the people who live there,’ says Lonika. ‘But of course we left plenty of room for them to ring the changes’.

Lonika Chande: lonikachande.com, Chris Dyson Architects: chrisdyson.co.uk