Gloucestershire
A residential project in a listed building that was in need of both repair and redecoration tasked the team with both sensitive conservation alongside creative design services.
A residential project in a listed building tasked the Kime Decoration team with sensitive conservation alongside creative design services. The project was of interest given its unique position and the desire of the clients to establish a comfortable house that reflected their personal tastes as well as the distinct creative point of view they brought to the endeavour.
A rambling historic country house can suggest unique circumstances for a decoration project. At once, its interest can lie in the sense that it has evolved over time, with rooms and buildings being joined and added onto, yet therein lies the challenge too - how to unify the various elements to bring order and a connected sensibility to what were once disparate arrangements. This house occupies a unique position in relation to the outdoor environment, tucked into a valley enabling the land to create a kinship to the building itself. The front-facing more formal rooms needed decoration and furniture that would make them appropriate for their use. The morning room’s pale scheme is well suited to the early part of the day while the dining room’s plan was intended for candlelit gatherings. An 18th Century Ushak rug and Victorian Gothic carved oak table ground the room which opens onto the main panelled foyer. A central staircase, carpeted in our ‘Stars and Stripes’ runner, leads up through the whole house, accessing all the bedrooms, family spaces and a study and gym. At the side of the house on the ground floor, the drawing room's wood panelled walls envelop the rich colours on the patterned upholstery as comfortable seating in front of the fire and a window seat’s alcove trimmed out in ikat. Throughout, the client’s interest in 20th Century art animates the walls. A large family kitchen surrounds the Aga next to a large boot room. The final result of the house is one of interest and appeal in the layered decoration alongside the client’s defined sensibility and approach resonant to the setting.
