Tasked with creating a beautiful new home for a downsizer, one east-London studio pulled out all the stops with this garden flat
Studio Skey was working on a project in leafy Wanstead when its next client spotted the interiordesign studio’s construction sign outside. She was downsizing from a house nearby and needed someone who shared her vision to transform the unlovely garden flat she was buying, which had great bones but, unfortunately, not much else.
‘Our brief was to create something beautiful,’ says Studio Skey co-founder Georgina Key. ‘A place that would make up for no longer having the large home that she and her late husband had created and their children had grown up in.’ Luckily, the two women’s tastes aligned perfectly. ‘She wanted something minimalist, modern, comfortable and feminine, which is our dream brief and why we consider it one of our favourite projects,’ states Georgina.
The flat had been clumsily modernised with questionable changes, including raised flooring levels. ‘We thought they must have been hiding pipework but, after demolition, we discovered they were purely a design decision,’ Georgina recalls in disbelief. Given the lower-ground-floor position, maximising natural light was a priority. Georgina and her co-founder Sophie Scott’s first move was to close up the ‘Jack and Jill’ entrance to the open-plan kitchen/ living space, replacing it with glazed double doors and a glass fanlight, and adding a large internal window between the living room and hallway.
Tactility and comfort were key when it came to the materials palette and, once they had sourced some limestone chequerboard tiles, e
