Penthouse Apartment in Smithfield, London
My clients live and work in San Francisco but as enthusiastic Anglophiles they decided to buy themselves this ‘pied-a-terre’ in London. They love the city of London’s history and found this apartment on the top floor of a stunning, newly restored, grade 2 listed heritage building, a stone’s throw from Smithfield Market. Luckily they purchased the property when the apartment was still a bare shell so we were able to work with the developers to adapt the interior fit-out to their requirements instead of what had been intended.
Large windows extending along all of the outside walls of the apartment provide stunning views over London and allow a tremendous amount of natural light too.
They particularly liked the ornate, Victorian tiles in the common areas so we requested that these were also used in the kitchen of their apartment to continue the same theme in contrast to the modern, streamlined units and creating a quirky, eclectic mix of styles.
They also asked for the built-in storage in both the living room and bedroom to be made from high-gloss, spray-painted MDF with a linen-fold design carved into all of the doors. Having drawn up the designs I managed to find a wonderful company called Middleton Bespoke Furniture who had just invested in a new CNC machine and were looking for a challenging project to use it for. Perfect timing and they did a beautiful job! I also managed to disguise the pitched roof beam behind the bed by covering it up with the bed head storage cupboards.
To add to the eclectic mix of styles the vintage, retro, mid-century Hans Olsen dining-table and chairs were a real find plus I had the chesterfield sofa-bed made in a mixture of green leather and sumptuous green velvet fabric for comfort. The clients found an antique metal toy box, for which I then had a glass top made in order to create the central coffee table.
The clients then had great fun shopping for side tables and occasional chairs from antique dealers and I just had to make sure that it all fitted before they purchased it all.
