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Family House, Chelsea grand staircase
1st September 2016

Family House, Chelsea is Profiled in Homes & Gardens

Helen Green Design’s Family House, Chelsea project has been profiled in Homes & Gardens with an article named “Studied Perfection”. The article looks at the project in depth: “Part of a former college, this family home features a seductive mix of bold colour and characterful touches thanks to a curated selection of art and tailor-made furniture.”

Our client “’wanted a private outside space where we could enjoy the sunshine that you get, now and again, in this country’ he said. The property he bought had not been decorated since the original conversion, so it was ready to be refreshed, and the team at Helen Green Design was the obvious choice. ‘I like the way the company’s designs look contemporary but not ultramodern,’ he explains.”

The design team at Helen Green “needed to create a comfortable family home that was sharp enough for receiving visitors at cocktail hour. Unlike similarly sized homes in the area, there’s no basement beneath this house and, because it’s a listed building, we weren’t in a position to create one. This meant that the sitting room had to function as both formal drawing room and more casual family room.

Fortunately, thanks in part to the building’s original purpose as a college, the room is impressively large, which gave the designers the scope they needed to create a scheme that strikes the perfect balance between the dual roles required of it. Also helping boost the versatility of this space are some clever design tricks, including tub chairs set on swivel bases so that they can face into the formal or informal part or the room, while a cabinet one might expect to contain drinks actually conceals the television.

Throughout the house, high ceilings and windows that are smaller and set higher in the wall on the upper floors are a reminder that the house was not originally built to be live in. Because of this, choosing furniture with the right proportions was particularly challenging, which is why almost everything was designed and made to fit. The expertly conceived and finished pieces have been offset by carefully sourced accessories, including the collection of Primavera vases in the drawing room, which come from Galerie Lafon-Vosseler in Paris.

Beautiful though these objects are, the strong point of the house is the overall effect created by the architecture and bespoke pieces working together, and the lifestyle it allows him and his family to enjoy, be it hosting a formal dinner party for business associates cooked by a chef from Le Gavroche or a family barbecue on the sunny terrace. It is a harmonious meeting of design and function.”