The Victorian Townhouse

There is something particularly special about working with a Victorian house. The proportions, architectural details and sense of history give you such a wonderful starting point, but the challenge is making those spaces work beautifully for the way a family lives today.

The Victorian Townhouse was a project we completed over a year ago, furnishing rooms throughout the house. We recently returned to photograph it, which gave me the opportunity to look at the spaces again and share some of the thinking behind the design.

For this story, I wanted to focus on two of the formal rooms, which were designed primarily for entertaining.

Creating rooms for entertaining

The brief was to create spaces that felt elegant and luxurious, but never too formal to be enjoyed.

We wanted to retain the grandeur and character of the original rooms while making them feel comfortable and inviting. The rooms needed to work when the family were entertaining, but also feel warm and welcoming when they were simply at home.

The colour palette was deliberately tonal. Creams and soft golds create the foundation, while the dark timber floors and deeper pieces of furniture give the rooms some weight and contrast.

I wanted there to be plenty of texture within the scheme, rather than relying on colour to create interest. Fabrics, wallcoverings, antique pieces and handcrafted furniture all add different layers to the rooms.

The furniture

Furniture was a particularly important part of the design.

We used a combination of bespoke and carefully sourced handcrafted pieces, alongside antiques that bring a sense of history and individuality to the rooms.

We sourced a number of Swedish antique pieces, including chests and stools, which were brought back to life and incorporated into the scheme. I love using antiques in this way. They bring a sense of age and character that is difficult to recreate with something newly made, and they sit beautifully alongside more contemporary pieces.

Throughout the rooms, we also used handcrafted consoles paired with ornate mirrors. These pieces add a little glamour while also bringing height, reflection and another layer of detail to the spaces.

Working with light

One of the things we thought about carefully was how these rooms would feel throughout the year.

The light in a room changes so much from summer to winter, particularly in Ireland, and I wanted the spaces to feel warm and luxurious in both.

During the summer months, the natural light catches the fabrics and wallcoverings and brings a beautiful glow to the rooms. There is a softness to everything when the rooms are filled with daylight.

In winter, when the natural light is softer and fades much earlier, the lighting becomes much more important. Lamps and chandeliers create pools of warm light, while the mirrors reflect that glow back into the room.

It means the rooms don't rely on one particular type of light or one particular time of day to feel beautiful. They change with the seasons.

The antiqued mirror

One of my favourite details in the rooms is the wall of antiqued mirror.

The mirror helps to reflect light around the room, which was particularly important in these spaces, but it also adds another layer of depth and glamour.

I love the way the aged quality of the mirror works with the antiques and handcrafted furniture. It feels decorative without being too polished or new.

The balance

For me, the success of these rooms comes down to balance.

There is a certain formality because of the architecture, the proportions and the way the rooms are used for entertaining. But the layers of texture, the softer palette, the antique furniture and the lighting stop them from feeling overly formal.

The aim was never to create rooms that looked perfect but couldn't be lived in.

It was about creating spaces that feel special when you are entertaining, but still feel comfortable when the evening is over and the family are simply enjoying their home.

That balance between elegance and ease is something I come back to again and again in my work.

If you'd like to see more of The Victorian Townhouse, you can find the full collection of photographs in my portfolio.