WELLINGTON HOUSE-THE BESPOKE JOINERY FOR A TIDY AND ORGANISED HOME

As interior designers working on a residential project, first and foremost, we have to please the client and bring upfront their personality. Ada, tell us more about the client of this particular project.

Anastasia, the owner of this beautiful Westminster property, is a young, yet ambitious entrepreneur, currently working on exciting beauty venture which will be launched in a couple of month in Central London. She had been renting the flat with the furniture for a year before she decided to go ahead with the purchase, allowing her to move into the space properly and finally decorate it in a way that reflects her style! 

And the property itself, tell us more about the apartment, the brief and which are the main issues that Temza had to tackle.

Temza completed luxury interior design service and fit-out in this upscale two bedroom apartment in the heart of Westminster. As in many new-built developments, storage was lacking. She had lots of personal items and clothes and very little space to store them. The face of the apartment was changed entirely with luxurious bespoke joinery to provide plenty of storage space. That was one of the critical points for Anastasia as well, always struggling to find the place for her belongings and having to live with ineffective storage configurations, looking cluttered or obstructing the space.

Wellington House-Before 

Wellington House-After 

Wellington House-Before 

Wellington House-After 

What inspired the bespoke joinery solution and what was the design direction that you took on?

Anastasia has a confident fashion sense, outgoing and social personality and well as a busy lifestyle, so her interiors needed to express that! There were many criteria to be fulfilled: creating plenty of storage space, designing a well-functioning home office for peak productivity, and providing a space to relax and have friends around.

The Bespoke joinery designed by Temza doesn’t leave a single opportunity untouched: the hallway sees a jaw-dropping transformation with a smart wardrobe that doubles as a built-in bench, unexpected floor to ceiling shoe storage, existing wardrobe optimisation, a few completely bespoke storage units, built-in desk and study area. The result-a fully transformed and maximised interior, where Anastasia has no longer problems to keeping perfectly organised and ready for visitors. 

Bespoke Joinery Piece-Technical Drawing-Temza London

Inspiration Image-Pinterest 

Let’s talk, joinery! Starting from the entrance, you mentioned a jaw-dropping  ‘smart wardrobe’, tell us more about the design and in general talk to us why the hallways are a perfect space for clever storage solutions.

More and more of us are living in smaller homes both inside and outside of the city. Therefore it is crucial to focus on storage solutions when designing someone’s home. In this case, we were given a blank canvas and had to think outside the box in order to deliver a creative, elegant, yet functional solution for our client. From the before images, you see that she desperately needed storage space for her shoes bags and coats. 

Temza used every inch of the space layout. The bespoke storage with built-in bench consists of compartments for coats, hats and gloves, while the tinted mirror on the other side opens up the space and helps to bounce warm light around. But perhaps the most ingenious solution is around the corner in the shape of a purpose built floor to ceiling floor storage sitting snugly in a 28 cm deep niche in the wall: what was previously unused space can now house up to 80 pair of shoes. Isn’t that just every girls’ dream? 

Wellington House, Hallway-After 

Moving on to the Reception room, you mentioned how important is for Anastasia to have friends and family over, for which obviously she would need a tidy and relaxed interior.  What are the design decisions that you took in order to achieve the desired look?

Our approach us to tidy up the area as much as possible, display what needed to be displayed and hide what needed to be hidden. We designed a stylish brass and zebrano media unit, combining closed and open storage. The closed storage provides a neat solution to store items like stationery, USB cables and chargers and loose paperwork, etc. The open storage allows you to display some of your favourite books, decorative items or plants and adds a personal touch to your home. 

The built-in desk and study area in the living room now allow for everything to have its own place, and Anastasia has no longer problems to keep the space looking perfectly organised and ready for visitors. 

How about clothes? You mentioned that Anastasia has a significant interest in fashion, which would mean many many beautiful garments. Did you have to redesign her wardrobe or go full minimalism mode?

The Temza design team looked for inspiration in her wardrobe, indeed. The devised a scheme that’s youthful, stylish, refined and light in equal measure was our main direction for choice of materials and finishes. Speaking of the wardrobe, we did not Stick to a ‘one in, one out’ principle. Everyone is going crazy about decluttering right now, which is excellent if you are happy to do that, but another option is to simply come up with a designer way to maximise the storage potential.  Temza reconfigured the wardrobe entirely using all the corners and introducing a variety of different storage and organising solutions for different types of items its capacity was raised by 60%.

Wellington House-Dressing Room-Before 

Wellington House-Dressing Room-After

How would you describe the design process?

We started with identifying the opportunities that the space had to offer. As mentioned previously, for us, it was essential to making use of every empty corner. We proceeded with gathering inspiration images and creating detailed drawings for our client. That helped her better visualize the space and the ideas we suggested. The finishes were chosen parallel the design process as we wanted to make sure that shape, functionality and materials all work well together and complement each other in the best possible way. Being a design and build studio contributed to the process, as it allowed for smooth communication between the design and construction team. Everyone was on the same page, including the client.

And finally, which are some of the challenges that you faced and how did you tackle them?

One of the main challenges for us was that the client was away. She delegated the project entirely to us and had very little to say about her preferences and requirements. Some clients like to be involved in the design process and give directions daily. In this case, however, Temza was trusted completely to execute the job. Whenever needed, we had to prepare quick computer-generated visuals to explain the tricky parts of the joinery better. We also made sure to source samples as quickly as 24h, to sign off the different elements as soon as possible, and within the set time frame.

Beautiful project indeed! Want to learn more about how to design the perfect joinery piece, have a look at our very helpful guide. If you prefer a hassle-free service though, do not hesitate to contact the experts at Temza.