With a carefully chosen combination of hues and patterns, Olya Lammas has brought a fresh and cohesive design language into her home in Kent
FEATURE JO LEEVERS PHOTOGRAPHY RACHAEL SMITH
In her Victorian villa in Kent, Olya Lammas has excelled at the art of balance. She has dovetailed the house’s heritage with slightly contemporary touches and blended feminine, floral patterns with more masculine designs. But on a deeper level, she has blended past and present, by tapping into the house’s past.
Olya was given the keys to this home personally by the previous owner. “She passed them over, saying, ‘I know the house will be in good hands’,” remembers Olya. That owner was a French artist, whose husband had written a memoir about his experiences in the Second World War. As a tribute, Olya has respectfully sprinkled a few French flavours through the interiors and, she hopes, approached the renovation in a sensitive yet brave way.
Olya, an interior designer who runs A House to Love, and her husband, Philip, an investor and financier, their son Danny, 17, and the family’s two whippets, Bunny and Alfie, moved here from a larger house nearby. “This house feels far more ‘us’, with very satisfying proportions,” she says.
There was a fair amount of structural work to do, so the family moved into a rental property in a neighbouring village while the layout was reworked, flooring was relaid and the plumbing and rewiring were updated. One of the most significant changes was enlarging the kitchen, using space from part of the hallway, off which it leads. Olya also had the doorway to the kitchen enlarged to accommodate a pair of vintage double doors, allowing a flow of natural light. “When we bought this house, rummaging in reclamation yards replaced my trips to Design Centre Chelsea Harbour,” she says with a smile.
The multi-pane double doors to the kitchen also bring a distinct pattern into the space, which is echoed in the geometric flooring and the herringbone pattern of the tiles on the wall. The kitchen units are painted in a custom-mixed warm yellow that softens the crisp geometric patterns. Olya also likes how the colour carries a whisper of holidays in the South of France.
The sitting room feels more dramatic, with a Philip Jeffries grasscloth
