The Photographer’s Family Home

The brief

An old Victorian house that already worked well. There were doors onto the garden, the kitchen was a good one, and nothing about it was crying out to be rescued. What the owners could see was the potential: a ground floor divided into rooms that each did one job, when it could be doing far more for the way they and their children actually live. They wanted something contemporary, timeless and pared back, a minimalist undertone rather than a stark white box, and a home that would show off their own photography rather than compete with it.

The design

A new extension runs along the back of the house, with beautiful Crittall-style doors bringing the garden and the daylight straight into the plan. That gave the family their kitchen, lounge and diner: one open, generous space for cooking, eating and being together.

The whole of the back of the house is now open, and the old dining room and lounge came together as a large new living room running along the east side. Double wooden barn doors sit between the two. Slide them open and the living room joins the kitchen and dining area as one continuous space; slide them closed and it becomes a room of its own. That flexibility is the point: the same square metres serve a party and a quiet Sunday equally well.

The other large lounge was left as it was, separate and unhurried, a quieter, more secluded place to sit away from the rest of the house.

We worked on the layout, the style and the feel of the house, and it was that clarity about how each space would be used that let us design a lighting plan to match: light that shows off the architecture, the photography and the materials, and that carries the rooms from morning through to evening.

The look is contemporary and timeless with a minimalist undertone. Quiet colours and clean lines let the Victorian proportions, the timber and the owners’ photography do the talking.

Every detail, considered

In a pared-back house, the few things you do add have to earn it. The owners’ own photography hangs throughout, and the palette was kept quiet so the images carry the walls. Reclaimed timber, used as a wall and as sliding barn-style doors, brings warmth and texture against the darker cabinetry and the black-framed glazing. And in the ground floor WC, where a small room can afford to be bold, we sourced a wall covering that plays on the family’s love of rabbits: the kind of detail that makes guests smile and makes a house feel personal.

The result

The back of the house is now where the family gathers, open to the garden through the Crittall-style doors, with a separate lounge to disappear into afterwards. The house still reads as Victorian, but it works the way this family lives, and the lighting takes it from bright and practical by day to calm and quiet at night.

Services: Full Interior Design, including Lighting Design.