What Home Means To Me

Lucy Sear-Barlow, Barlow & Barlow Interior Design Studio

For the first instalment of “What Home Means To Me”, we step inside the world of Lucy Sear-Barlow, co-founder of celebrated interior design studio Barlow & Barlow. Known for creating layered, characterful spaces rich in colour, texture and personality, Lucy shares her thoughts on the rituals, memories and details that turn a house into a deeply personal home.

What "home" means to me...

For me, home is never something you arrive at fully formed. It builds gradually, almost without you noticing, through use, through light, through the way materials settle and begin to respond to the way you live.

I’ve never been especially drawn to spaces that feel overly resolved. The spaces that stay with you usually have a certain looseness to them.

Ultimately, a sense of home comes from the accumulation of small decisions. Nothing too fixed, nothing too perfect. Just a series of choices that slowly begin to feel entirely natural.

The spaces within my home that hold the most meaning...

It’s rarely the “main” rooms. I always come back to the in-between spaces, the kitchen first thing when the light is still quite blue, a hallway that changes throughout the day and a bathroom in the evening when everything softens and slows. Those are the spaces that tend to hold the most atmosphere.

Shower room in soft pink striped tiling with a brass shower, seen through a panelled door, over herringbone marble flooring — Credit: Kin House x Rebecca Udall

Console basin with brass legs against teal and cream striped tiling, below a brass-framed mirror and wall lights — Credit: Kin House x Rebecca Udall

How materials, textures and finishes shape that feeling...

I think of materials as the thing that gives a room its depth. Colour is part of that, but it’s never flat. It’s about how it sits within a surface, whether it’s absorbed, reflected, or slightly broken up. I’m always drawn to finishes that have a bit of movement in them. A glaze that isn’t entirely even, a stone that shifts slightly in tone, something that feels like it’s been made rather than produced. That irregularity stops a space from feeling static.

The details that make a home feel uniquely mine...

Light changes everything. It’s probably the thing I think about most without even realising, how it moves across a surface, how it pulls colour out or flattens it, how a room feels at different points in the day.

And then it’s the objects. Not in a styled sense, but the things that have naturally found their place over time. Books, pieces picked up along the way, things that carry memory. They anchor a room in a way nothing else quite can.

Bath and shower lined in heavily veined marble with brass fittings and recessed shelving

Marble-lined shower beside a WC and dark blue tiled wall with an octagonal mirror, over herringbone flooring

Lucy's Ca' Pietra Edit

A curated selection of Ca' Pietra materials Lucy would choose for her own home, Inspired by the way she lives and designs.

Cloakroom with a chrome washstand against dark herringbone tiling and a large potted plant, on marble flooring

East Village Bianco Porcelain

In larger rooms, I prefer to keep things quieter, opting for a pale, expansive surface that allows light and proportion to lead.

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Stack of deep red glazed square tiles resting on a rough timber surface

Maroc Bordeaux

I often come back to richer shades and earth-led colours, particularly in smaller spaces. Maroc holds light in a denser, more atmospheric way.

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Handmade White Zellige

I like tiles where the colour doesn’t feel fixed. A glaze that shifts, catches the light, deepens and softens depending on the time of day. In a bathroom or smaller room, that movement becomes the decoration. You don’t need anything else. There is something very calming about that kind of inconsistency.

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Outdoor shower on a green glazed tiled wall beside a swimming pool and timber-clad house

Stone Glaze Lemongrass

I tend to prefer texture over pattern. A surface that has a slight relief or grain to it can carry just enough interest without ever feeling busy.

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Boot room with pale fitted cupboards and exposed brick, opening onto the garden over a tumbled stone floor

Vieux Bourgogne Limestone Artisan Antiqued

I am always drawn to a limestone that already feels as though it belongs. Slightly chalky, a little uneven in tone, nothing too crisp. Materials that sit quietly underfoot and immediately take the edge off a space.

View Vieux Bourgogne Limestone Artisan Antiqued →