Go with the Flow

Project Details:

Products Used: Bardiglio Nuvolato Marble, Carrara Marble, Thassos Marble, East Java Hummingbird Marble Mosaic Plume & Temple, Long Island Marble Honed

Bespoke Details: Bardiglio Nuvolato Marble, Carrara Marble & Thassos Marble

Designer: Layzell Architects

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Photographer: Layzell Architects

Located in one of London’s most exclusive areas, this five bedroom Victorian villa is close to Kensington Gardens and its renovation was a dream project for Layzell Architects. ‘Owned by a young couple with two small boys, the brief was to make it a practical but beautiful family home to live in and enjoy together,’ says director Laura Layzell. Reconfiguring the layout was key. The house was quite fragmented with lots of different half landings and small rooms at the top and the client wanted all the spaces to be much better connected. The client also wanted to relocate the kitchen from the lower ground floor to the ground floor.

The substantial renovation began by stripping the house to its shell. The staircase was relocated and rotated 90°, which freed up the floorplan on every floor and allowed more rational, well-proportioned rooms. Roof lights then allowed light to spill down to all the floors. ‘Because there’s an open staircase that runs throughout the house, it really unlocked the flow so that the family would feel better connected, no matter what floor they were on,’ explains Laura.

The kitchen, which had been quite small, was then relocated and transformed with bespoke cabinetry featuring a wooden island and painted units. A huge transformation was undertaken with the lower ground floor, making it more practical and spacious by lowering the floor level and extending, resulting in a capacious family seating area.

The clients wanted a sophisticated, timeless and elegant interior scheme so the colour palette was very tight, with bronze finishes to avoid it looking too greige. ‘There are barely any pops of colour about,’ says Laura. ‘We used two colours and we repeated the stone from top to bottom so that there was a real rhythm and cohesiveness to the design.’

Stone was a natural choice in the home. ‘As a practice, we really like to use natural materials wherever we can,’ says Laura. ‘We prefer things to be honest and natural, so we like to choose natural stones in places such as kitchens and bathrooms. We would always choose it over something man-made.’

The entrance hall set the tone for the rest of the house with our Bardiglio Nuvolato, a dark grey stone, Carrara, a lighter grey, and Thassos, a very white stone. ‘It was a bespoke piece that we worked with Ca' Pietra on,’ says Laura. ‘The sizing of the slabs were cut to fit the width of the hall perfectly so that it felt completely purposeful and seamless as you enter the front door at ground floor level.’ Bardiglio was the cornerstone of the palette. ‘Bardiglio was the key,’ explains Laura. It was really important to have Bardiglio in the entrance hall to give a hint of what was to come in the rest of the house because it’s also used in the master bathroom and lower ground floor. A patterned floor was selected because ‘it’s a Victorian house and true to its origin. The Victorians loved their patterned entrance hall tiles, so we enjoy creating a modern take on how the house would have looked when it was first built.’ The same tiles are continued in the utility for a harmonious feel.

Upstairs, Ca' Pietra's tiles were used in the ensuite and family bathroom. The ensuite is a serene design with the star of the show being East Java Hummingbird Marble Mosaic Plume tiles, which create standout features on the walls. This distinctive minty green marble with its playful curves was wrapped around the bath to form a beautiful splashback. ‘We stopped it short from the ceiling, which we like to do with a patterned tile, so that you can really see the shape of the tile,’ explains Laura. The tile was then repeated on the vanity splashback for cohesivity. ‘The aim was to make the room as fun as possible, and appropriate for little boys so it would grow with them and remain timeless.’ When it came to the floor tiles, Long Island in a large format was chosen, and also used on the skirting board and the bath panel. ‘We wanted to keep the floor quite neutral because the wall tiles were doing all the talking,’ explains Laura.

To ensure that the bathrooms weren’t the same but had a connection, our East Java Hummingbird Marble Mosaic Temple tiles, a geometric design featuring the same soft green stone, were used in the top floor bathroom. ‘We flipped the theory so we made the floor fun with a mosaic and kept the walls very simple. We ran it into the shower cubicle creating a wet room.’ The walls of the shower enclosure, skirting and counter-mounted basin feature our Long Island marble.

‘We love working with Ca' Pietra,’ says Laura. ‘It’s always a nice collaboration. The team are really great at making our ideas come to life and the end product is always beautiful.’