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London interior design Nicola Harding was the right person to turn to. The owners, a couple with two boys, were leaving London for rural Berkshire and life in a Georgian brick manse.
They appreciated the grandeur of their house—8,600 square feet, seven bedrooms—but how to downplay the stuffy formality and lend the spaces the right energy and functionality for a young, modern family?
First the layout demanded a rethink: “As it was, you had to walk through certain rooms to get to others, making those spaces feel confused and uncomfortable. The house also had various additions—the last owners created a large extension at the back that sucked life away from the original part of the building,” says Harding (who goes by her nickname Nix). “To keep costs down, we kept structural work to a minimum, but were able to rework the flow of the ground floor by blocking off doorways, making areas feel less corridor-like and more cozy.”
Equally importantly Harding happens to be a master colorist: she is both bold and deft in her selections not only of paint, but artwork and the many seating and lighting choices a dwelling this size requires. Her valentine to the house and its occupants comes courtesy of an intoxicating bouquet of blues and greens and stealth pinks that are entirely transformative.
Photography by Paul Massey, courtesy of Nicola Harding & Co.
Above:The family had left London with trepidation, Harding explains: “The wife had lived her whole life there and worried she was stepping into someone else’s life, someone older and more sensible. So, it was crucial to her that the house felt true to her. It needed to make sense as a country house, but also to feel exciting. It needed to be user-friendly, meeting their practical needs but also to be fun and sexy.”
Towards that end, the living spaces, including this corner of the living room, are furnished with soft places to flop, arranged, says Harding, “to create a feeling of intimacy.” The sofa is from tk. The artwork over it tk.
Above: Harding balances the upright and formal with the down home: a set of found battered green work stools surround the living room bar table next to floor-length linen curtains edged with antique lace dyed a deep blue
Above: The kitchen was opened up by “removing an awkward wall that bit into the middle of the room, enabling us to create a large island. The built-in cabinets are by Remodelista favorite deVol and the Simone Bar Stools (?) are from Sika-Design.
Above: Rather than fill the kitchen with a large table, the family opted for an intimate setup and a larger table in the adjacent garden room. The vintage bank of drawers provides extra storage: “They enabled us to limit the amount of built-in cabinets, which both kept the cost down and stopped the room feeling too fitted kitcheny,” say Harding.
Above: The garden room serves as a less formal living area. The sofa is from Sofa.com and the tk armchairs are from The One Off Chair Company.
Harding says she planned the overall color palette by “making note of the natural light levels in the different spaces. Where the light was good, I opted for paler colors that would enhance the sense of space. Where the light levels were lower, I went for richer tones that would give a sense of warmth and drama, and provide an exciting, varied experience of color through the house.”
Above: Harding chose shades of green, both subtle and bold “as a color thread linking the different spaces. Green is a brilliant color to live with, working well at all times of day and times of year.
“A trick I like to use is putting a darker color on the woodwork than on the walls,” she adds. Here, the walls are painted in Tracery and the trim is Normandy Grey, both from Little Green. “One’s eye stops at the lightest thing we see, so if you paint a window frame in a darker color, your eye is drawn beyond it to the view.” The rattan Wengler? dining chars are from Sika-Design.
Above: “Color really is a very cost-effective magic spell that transforms the atmosphere of a space,” says Harding. Here, she painted an antique cupboard from Vinterior and paired it with an abstract painting by John Goodison, whose studio is in Brighton.
Here description of the existing palette? “Various shades of beige, mushroom and gray: safe and samey—and bland and depressing.”
Above: “This had been a dark intersection between hallways, with no natural light,” says Harding of the former library that’s now the dining/reading room. “We closed off a doorway, added floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, painted it a bright blue (Stone Blue by Farrow & Ball) that has bags of personality, and overcame the low ceiling by painting it a similar shade so that it disappears. The combination of the books, the color, and the darker ceiling, as well as re-directing the flow, transformed what had been a really horrible space into one of the most inviting areas of the house.”
The brass Plain Table is a Matthew Cox design and the Palayam pendant lights are from Cox & Cox. The red velvet-upholstered Safia Dining Chairs came from Made. The Oka block-printed cotton carpet is actually two rugs sewn together.
Above: The entry hall now has an Art Deco table, vintage Tuareg mat of woven straw detailed in leather, and a blue velvet sofa. The dark space is painted Chelsea Green II on the walls and the woodwork is Salvia, both from Paint & Paper Library. “When Nicola suggested that green, all I could think of was Kermit the Frog,” the wife told UK House & Garden. “I thought I would hate it, but it has become the color I like the most.”
Above: Floor. Sofa. Is the portrait of someone who lived in the house? To create a flow between spaces, the adjacent home office is painted the same as the entry hall woodwork: tk, which Harding describes as “an off-beat aqua green.”
Above: The wife’s office doubles as the homework room: “rather than just putting a desk in her study, we found a large kitchen-style table that we placed in the middle of the room, creating lots of space for her to sit with the children, spread out her own work or wrap presents at Christmas.” It’s painted tk, which Harding describes as “an off-beat aqua green.” The lights are tk. Why the layered rugs?
Above: The parents’ room has a custom upholstered headboard made by Naturalmat and walls painted Farrow & Ball’s Setting Plaster. A Guinevere rug
Bedroom in a Georgian country house in Berkshire, England, updated by interior design Nicola Harding. Paul Massey photo.
Above: The blue theme extends to the main bath which is painted Salvia from Paint & Paper Library on the walls and tk on the tub.
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