Living · London
Full residential renovation — contemporary neoclassical
A refined full-house renovation in Harrow that reinterprets classical European interiors for contemporary living. Traditional mouldings, architectural symmetry and bespoke grisaille murals are balanced against cleaner furniture lines, concealed lighting and a restrained palette — a home that feels elegant, timeless and genuinely comfortable.
Neoclassical rooms fail in two familiar ways: played straight, they turn into a museum nobody puts their feet up in; modernised carelessly, the mouldings become wallpaper for furniture that ignores them. The renovation had to hold the symmetry, the panelling and the decorative tradition — and still read unmistakably as a home designed this decade.
The classical layer was rebuilt properly — full-height panelling, cornice profiles, arched niches and hand-drawn grisaille murals set into the walls like permanent art — and the contemporary layer was slipped in around it: concealed cove light instead of visible fittings, cleaner-lined seating in velvet and damask, and one continuous dark herringbone floor tying the rooms together. Even the cloakroom under the stairs was treated as a set piece, its mural wrapping the awkward geometry into the best small room in the house.
A house that honours the classical tradition without living in costume — symmetrical, storied, and comfortable on an ordinary Tuesday.
Layered and mostly concealed: cove halos lift the cornices, arched niches glow from within, reeded-glass sconces mark the walls, and brass chandeliers carry the classical note — the murals are always lit, never spotlit.
