Holiday house London - areas to admire, questions to ask

The Holliday House London, apparently first time in London, turned out a wonderful place to visit. Over the grounds of 2 houses in North-West London, 26 designers have created space each.

The experience was breathtaking for a number of reasons. For a start – the project is a charity in favour of breast cancer research. The city’s area is a gem in Britain's capital, so what other chance to go somewhere so nice? Having complete rooms pulled together works far better than a sketch or a show-room – in fact it allows an entry to a designer's mind and lots of inspiration for a "budding" designer.

So, for those who care, my thoughts on what was exposed – for which I have just one word – areas to admire!

1. Bedrooms!

Possibly the dominating theme in those multi-bedroom town houses! Indeed, it was all kinds of directions in style and design – very young even "adolescent" spaces – such as Studio suss (great job), or very masculine, very feminine ones too; very impressive, and well – to some extent some were predictable (at least for me).

Shalini Misra's is one of the more remarkable ones (to me at the very least) I liked the seamless combination of wall paper, textile, furniture, art and details. She'd declared it Moroccan-inspired Marooned in Morocco’ – I saw more of art deco – but enjoyed. This is the key!

Also, the masculine cum tropical theme of Turner Peacock stuck!

Overall, I think providing a bedroom in a townhouse is not too much of a challenge, because the rooms are nicely proportioned – the ceiling height is not overwhelmingly greater as the case would be in Brussels; still the versatility of stiles proves that it is all possible.

2. Dining rooms – speaking of proportions – this came as a surprise, a real weathered well-known name Nina Campbell taught me something: her dining room was magnificent in terms of colours, furniture, textures and accessories. A lot of the pieces though were oversized! I think one may need to practice for some years in order to learn his/her way around proportions. Also – I am sure most of you won't see the difference if those slightly too big pieces were just on paper.

Another dining room I enjoyed was Iggy's- remarkable selection of art, some of the pieces make it difficult to host your kids' party though. The wisdom of this room is that if a place will be used in the evening, and the art and light are well selected – the lack of windows is almost no problem…

3. Living rooms! What a big topic – I am divided between the large spacious ground floor living rooms and the lovely areas adjacent to the kitchens and looking onto the gardens. A very calm intimate space was proposed by Sophy Paterson - in green (one of my most favorite colours) and white. I'd say a good fusion with the nature just behind in glass panes!

The ground floor floor contained a lot of original pieces – chandeliers wall furnishings, furniture, but something was also amiss with the scale – at times the spaces made more allusions of art gallery than home proper - see works of Fiona Barratt.

And this makes me repeat a question I've asked myself and others already many times – how far can training go? Will one who is not raised rich learn the ways of the wealthy just by visiting houses? I think this reaffirms my resolve to work with what I know and aim for the future: learn to organize space well, and make cozy in spite of all space limitations….

4. Random places: there was not a square centimeter of the holiday houses undecorated. There were hallways, bathrooms, restrooms, staircases – In one word all of it. Very important feature as this is what gave integrity to the project.

5.No formal areas – and for that reason my favorites: a dressing room by Rachel Laxer, an exercise by KLC second year students. Probably it is the time to share that am a KLC student too – open learning diploma, so watch this space!

And finally a snug by Natalia Miyar. extremely successful use of space, colours and textures. 

Once I was told that when leaving an exhibition I must know which picture I want to take and hang at home. To paraphrase – this is the vibe I might enjoy. In the end of the day art and design serve the same purpose – I admire them both but also can't stop asking myself – how do they do it? What goes through artists' mind? Could I learn to imitate it?

Colours, shapes and volumes - another series of testing

Colours are easy, shapes not quite so – this is my conclusion.

The present post as an extension to my first testing post, if you would remember it. Once again go on and off the beaten track.

So, on the beaten track are colours. On the following picture you can see extracts from my room in different light. Light is probably the one factor which makes colour testing compulsory and not a single action – try in day light, try with lamps, try on a good and bad day. With dark colours it is particularly tricky, because nuances come out in the bright light of the day strictly.

Initially I toured the curtain shops with a paint chip. To my horror plenty of shops are deep and often the sample they show you cannot be seen in daylight anyway. We had some funny dialogues with shop assistants, which almost made me want to go and check my  eye sight. Luckily a sample can be rented and the colour verified in the exact exploitation conditions.

So, the next step after playing with the sample around the windows – in this in daylight, in shade next to the wall and next to the sheers, was placing and order – and that's it – game set and match.

The testing I find extremely difficult is reproducing a floor plan in an actual room, and that before purchasing the actual furniture. If you go back to my project two floor plan, you wouldn't fail to notice that it is not very orthodox (for those who were made party to my plan at the very least). The reason for placing the bed in the center of the room is that I love symmetry, so it is a natural axe. In addition, with windows on all the external walls, so little space is left for standing items, such as wardrobes. A second reason is that I need to enjoy the view from my bed, and that is one option for it. A last reason is that this layout provides for two mini zones, which can give additional functions to the room – and that is what I want too. So, back to the point – unorthodox floor plan, and multiple warnings – you won't be able to walk around it.

TIP 1

"Walking around it" is precisely what I've been testing those last days – a standard bed 200 by 160 is traced in masking tape, on the floor, and every time I go into the room – with a purpose of course, I try to see how much the "bed" is in my way. It is in my way, a little – and for sure two people in the same room will block the flow in that specific area. I think though that the only possible challenge is that the cut out zone may be underused due to bad accessibility. Also the person using that side of the bed may go grumpy, eventually.

TIP 2

Walk around it and move it a little. This is a test for my dining table – at present a piece of garden furniture, in the most up to date version of project two – a nice, extensible round table – IKEA INGATORP. Another thing I like about it is that it doesn’t have legs – will be much easier to move it around and place chairs around it. But it is also bigger than the present table. The solution is to cut out the shape and see how it fits – it will be a lot of work to trace a circle with masking tape, but a circle can be cut out. 

In fact I worked on a quarter of a circle. I traced it with a pencil and  a string, in the absence of compass. Then from the quarter, I produced the half, and the the other half. As you can see from the photographs – did not have enough of the same paper – but it all worked – the substitute paper is of the same quality. The advantage is that the shape also can be moved in different locations. So, as a result I am very reassured about the round table. I must also open a parenthesis – the exact footprint of the foot was not examined.

TIP 3

And now for the 3D question – how about the volumes of pieces – I may be able to walk around the tracing, but will I bang my knees? Will I brush off and knock off things from table tops? Tip three – use light items you can place in the future spot of furniture – in my case this is a frame for drying clothes – very light and possibly bigger than the intended piece of furniture. Even if it is transparent, I am not quite happy with the volume (planning for a future chest of drawers), so will need to think again. As you can see the purpose of the props well justified – another layer of thinking is activated – I have my doubts, confirmations and complimentary questions.

And now for the reader – have you experienced those issues yourself? What solutions did you explore? Do you find the tips useful?