When it came to the palettes and schemes, Evelina was guided primarily by two principles: the house needed to be able to evolve with the clients and their growing children, and there was to be nothing superfluous. ‘It was really nice to work with someone who wasn’t afraid of a blank space and letting a room breathe,’ explains Evelina, whose collaboration with Charlotte proved so perfect that they now count themselves as close friends. ‘Charlotte gave me carte blanche, but she also pushed me to simplify things,’ she adds. ‘Future proofing was important, and we didn’t want to bring anything in that you’d end up getting really bored of.’ Well-chosen antiques became key to their mission, including a large oak refectory table from Will Green in the kitchen-dining room, which they bought right at the start of the project and ended up plastering the walls around, and the large pressed metal mirror in the hall that wooed them thanks to its impressive scale.
While there is an elegant restraint throughout this revitalised Victorian terrace house, Evelina also wanted to ensure that any crisp lines were softened. Take the kitchen and dining extension, where she added sheer linen skylight drapes – made from Rose Uniacke’s ‘Sheer Linen’ in whisper – to soften the clean lines of the extension and also provide shade on hot days. In the main bedroom – a room Evelina describes as ‘bathed in fabric’ – off-white merino wool curtains and a slouchy bed throw have a softening effect, providing a relaxed contrast to the clean lines of the jib doors either side of the bed that hide storage.
A heavy-weight Kick pendant from Jamb in a dark bronze finish is suspended over the similarly robust, solid oak dining table from Ron Green and seasoned oak ‘Suffolk’ dining chairs from Neptune. The terracotta parquet floor tiles are from Baked Earth
Harry Crowder
Alongside all of this serenity, there are moments of decorative frippery too, including in her daughter’s bedroom up on the second floor where the walls have been wrapped – walls, ceiling, shelves and all – in Colefax & Fowler’s ‘Fernwood Leaf Green’ to provide a pretty backdrop to a bed decked out with a dark green canopy. ‘This is a princess room and we wanted it to feel really fun and theatrical,’ says Evelina, who lent into that theme in the adjoining bathroom too, framing the bath with a frilly shower curtain and pelmet made from Colefax & Fowler’s ‘Bees’ in biscuit. ‘Otherwise, the space is quite neutral and the idea was that the curtain can easily change if needed as their daughter grows up,’ she explains. ‘I love the view through to that room and am always very mindful of vistas,’ adds Evelina, who created a visual link between the two spaces by using the same shower curtain fabric for a chair in the bedroom. Bathrooms can be hard to add character to, but in the family bathroom Evelina deployed upholstery pins to enliven walls of white tiles, adding them at their corners in the grout lines. ‘It was inspired by Victorian kitchens and added a really nice texture to the walls in a very cost effective way,’ she explains. ‘This room is all about those pins and how they saved the day at the end of the project.’