Our client is vivacious, outgoing and engaging. She has a busy social life and loves to entertain. She has lived in her current home for many years, raised her family here, entertained extensively, and if these walls could talk they would share some fascinating stories about well-known Wellingtonians!
Our brief was to refresh the large living room and adjoining dining room with new curtains, sofas, armchairs and ottomans to provide an attractive area for entertaining.
Fuchsia, flowers and frogs
Our vision
We wanted to create a space that reflected our client’s wonderful, colourful personality and worked with the character and charm of her 1920s home. Our client has eclectic taste combined with a love of fabrics featuring overblown flowers and was up for injecting more colour to create warmth and soul. Her existing furniture was tired but we could see its classic lines and great bones meant it was perfect for reupholstering and refinishing to fit the vision.
How we implemented the vision
We repurposed her vintage furniture. One of the perils of aging is that low couches are no fun to get out of! We therefore chose new legs, in a beautiful brass finish, to both add an unexpected luxe finish and raise them to a comfortable and useful height. Adding additional support structure to the sofas was a sensible investment, as was packing them with large quantities of feathers to provide the ultimate comfort factor. The arm chairs and ottomans were similarly refinished and the transformation is stunning. We used rich sumptuous fuchsia toned velvet fabric for the sofas, and playful stripes in a fresh coordinating fabric on the chairs and ottomans. We paired the refinished upholstery with curtains in a Designer Guild floral fabric - the colours remind us of summer and sunshine. A much loved cream rug has now found a new home in this space replacing the previous rug whose colours and size were not harmonious with the new design. Our client collects and loves frogs, so we handpainted a frog onto a cushion cover as a special surprise for her to find when we revealed the finished room.
We set the curtains on new longer tracks - this means they sit further apart than the old ones, and hung them higher on the walls - opening the windows up to let in more lovely light. As our client does not close her curtains in the evening we strategically hung the curtains above the bay window, a look that is more sophisticated and maximises the light.
The Result
Everything works cohesively and flows well between the two rooms making them feel custom and special.
The result of repurposing existing pieces is that they feel like a gathering of old friends that now lead different lives but always have such great fun together. There is an interesting play between the comfort of loved pieces and the luxury of new finishes that gives this space soul.