Uniquely mismatched furniture and accessories sit beautifully alongside international collections of textiles and art to create a wonderfully eclectic, stylish home in the city
FEATURE CHARLOTTE DUNFORD PHOTOGRAPHY ASTRID TEMPLIER
A fusion of cultures, brought together through a fascinating array of global textiles and artwork, dominates the interiors of this London home. A contrast from their 18th-century farmhouse in Buckinghamshire, Annabelle Hicks and her husband were searching for a second home in the city when they came across the four-storey townhouse. Over the past year, with the help of Adam Knight of Nefarious Design and his team, their home has been imbued with personality through a playful mix of colour and pattern.
The couple were attracted at first by the central location of the 19th-century Georgian house. “We wanted to be somewhere in London where my husband could walk to work and where we were close to museums, shops and galleries,” explains Annabelle. “We also liked the idea of there being lots of different nationalities in this area. It is a little bit eclectic.”
Having seen the team at Nefarious work with one of her friends, Annabelle was keen to collaborate with them. However, she wanted to be sure they were going to be able to capture her unique style, so she invited them to her Buckinghamshire home to experience and understand the intricacies of her aesthetic. “I have a lot of things that I’ve collected and I have my own slightly wild, eclectic style. They needed to understand that, that it was never going to be purely elegant.”
The couple were blessed with good foundations to build upon as the townhouse had seen many additions over the years, including an extension at the rear and the excavation of a basement floor. Yet, the period details, renowned in Georgian buildings for bringing a sense of elegance and character, had been largely covered up and so undoing this became a priority. “When we bought the house there were parts of it that were sort of boxed up. Some of the mouldings were not visible because people had built cupboards over them,” Annabelle recalls. “We removed all the joinery, cupboards, shelving, everything except for the original staircase, and we tried to expose what we could of what was there originally.”
