{"id":708500,"date":"2026-07-24T08:13:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T08:13:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/708500\/"},"modified":"2026-07-24T08:13:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T08:13:13","slug":"a-west-london-townhouse-that-reflects-its-owners-eclectic-yet-elegant-style","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/708500\/","title":{"rendered":"A west London townhouse that reflects its owner\u2019s eclectic yet elegant style"},"content":{"rendered":"

That\u2019s not to say the house didn\u2019t need work. The previous owner, who has become a good friend and regularly pops in to check on the garden, had lived there for decades and had made few changes in recent years. Bodil and her two children, now in their teens, decamped to the basement for a year while the main three floors were rewired, replumbed and straightened out. \u2018All the ceilings and floors were crooked,\u2019 she says, explaining that everything was restored as carefully as possible to ensure none of the character was lost.<\/p>\n

With the building work done, Bodil could start bringing personality into the house, which began with the art<\/a>. She started her career in the art world \u2013 it was while sourcing pieces for people\u2019s homes (which she still does) that she decided to move into interior design \u2013 and has accumulated an impressive collection over the years, including works by Keith Tyson and Damien Hirst.<\/p>\n

\"Image<\/p>\n

An old butcher\u2019s block sourced through an antique dealer is complemented by kitchen cabinetry in a rich chocolatey brown. The units are repaintable \u2013 \u2018I\u2019m sure in a few years I\u2019ll decide I want a green kitchen,\u2019 says Bodil \u2013 and the moonstone worktops will work well with ant colour. The pendant light is an Italian vintage piece.<\/p>\n

Christopher Horwood<\/p>\n

Rather than taking inspiration from the art, Bodil focused on creating the right backdrop. \u2018If you do your job well as a designer, the art will just melt in,\u2019 she says. \u2018I put a lot of the art in the hallway<\/a> because it\u2019s very neutral, but also because I feel hallways need art.\u2019 She was similarly restrained in the first-floor sitting room, painting the walls in a creamy white to showcase a pair of Keith Tysons, an exquisite chandelier made by Stuart Haygarth using thousands of spectacle lenses, and a mix of furniture old and new. \u2018I think there\u2019s a sense of displacement in me that I’ve now lived abroad longer than I lived in Norway,\u2019 says Bodil. \u2018So if you look around this room, there\u2019s French, Italian, even Moroccan pieces. I don\u2019t feel my style is purely Norwegian anymore, I like to think it\u2019s more eclectic.\u2019<\/p>\n

This shift away from a typical Scandi aesthetic is also reflected in some of her bolder colour choices. If you look up as you walk through the front door, your eye is immediately drawn to the bluey-green gloss that frames the doorway to the study; venture upstairs and you will find a dressing room in the most uplifting yellow. \u2018All my houses<\/a> have had a yellow room,\u2019 adds Bodil. \u2018It\u2019s somewhere you can go if you need to feel the sunshine.\u2019<\/p>\n

The holiday spirit continues in her bedroom<\/a>, painted in a warm terracotta inspired by trips to Tuscany and Morocco, while her daughter\u2019s blue bedroom is a homage to island life (specifically the film Mamma Mia). The driftwood-style bedside tables are one of a handful of pieces that Bodil designed for the house, following in the footsteps of her father\u2019s family, who were all furnituremakers. She also designed a few of the fabrics dotted through the house. \u2018I was always looking for fabrics I couldn’t find, so I decided the best way to solve this was to make my own,\u2019 she explains.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"That\u2019s not to say the house didn\u2019t need work. The previous owner, who has become a good friend…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":708501,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[6225,6485,6486,6642,7884,1120,20782,96,29039,13905,7886,7887,56,54,55,35814],"class_list":["post-708500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-city","tag-city-houses","tag-design","tag-designers-houses","tag-entertainment","tag-houses-belonging-to-interesting-people","tag-london-houses","tag-traditional-city","tag-traditional-houses","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-victorian-houses"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=708500"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708500\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/708501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=708500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=708500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=708500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}