Deco December/Jan magazine

E-zine winter 2016 Put eco at the heart of your interior design

www.decomag.co.uk

Upcycler Max McMurdo talks making, doing and mending

Christmas gifts galore!

Let’s hear it for flamingos, the bird of the year!

Felt art by Lucy Storrs

Small space design: the devil’s in the storage

Fire retardant chemicals

hazard or life-saver?

Contents 3. News Editor’s Letter Welcome to our first Deco magazine for issuu.com, which we think complements our online publication www.decomag.co.uk.

We’re all about eco-friendly interior design, so we love all things upcycled, reclaimed, sustainable, organic and recyclable - and that encompasses a lot of design, from new contemporary to antiques and vintage.

We care about issues too. For example, we’re encouraging our readers to look into the work of Arlene Blum in the US, who has done so much raise awareness of the dangers of fire retardant chemicals in furniture through her Green Science Policy Institute. However, Terry Edge is concerned that the UK is reluctant to address the issues and we’ve talked to him about the need for British consumers to be made aware of the dangers of FR chemicals in furniture, children’s products and household electricals.

See the feature on page 10.

We bring you a Christmas gift guide, we look at the felt art of Lucy Storrs, the small space design skills of Play Associates and at the mania for flamingos we’re apparently in the grip of!

British craft is thriving, while our profile slot goes to the lovely Max McMurdo, all round practical man, treehugger and founder of upcycled furniture store Reestore and budding TV star.

With best wishes from London, The Deco team

COVER: a shed for Sir Paul Smith designed by furniture maker Natalie de Leval.

4. Felt art of Lucy Storrs 6/ Christmas gift ideas from vintage posters to linen bread bags 8/ Max McMurdo talks to Abby Trow about upcycling and his move into TV 10. Let’s celebrate British craft, which is enjoying a renaissance 11/. Introducing Lüks Linen and its peshtemals from Turkey (promotion) 12. Former civil servant and fire retardant expert Terry Edge says FR chemicals in UK furniture are a serious health danger and don’t protect us in fires 14. We’re all flamingo crazy!

See our eco-friendly flamingo art & homewares 16. Interior designer Rory Macpherson of Play Associates turned a tiny studio flat into a stunning piéd-a-terre

Publisher ABD Associates, London N4, UK t +44 (0)20 7561 0675 Content team Editor: Abby Trow Deputy editor: Kay Hill Advertising manager: Ajay Duggal Photographer: Mike Trow Contact: info@decomag.co.uk Deco online: www.decomag.co.uk

Deco mag 2

News

Head to Light School at the Surface Design Show 7-9 Feb 2017

Bluebellgray opens first showroom in Glasgow

latest innovative lighting for contract and residential interiors. Sit in on lighting lessons and join in hands-on demos with top designers.

Experts giving talks include David Atkinson, Sanjit Bahra of Design Plus Light, Ellie Coombs of Nulty, Rebecca Weir of Light IQ and Sally Storey of Lighting Design International.

Known for its large scale watercolour florals, bluebellgray has expanded into all things home, with bedlinen, decorative accessories, upholstered pieces of furniture and linen fabrics. And fans will be pleased to know that it has opened its first (very colourful) showroom in the heart of Glasgow’s West End: 17 Park Circus Place, Glasgow G3 6AH.

Discover the latest in architectural lighting at Light School taking place at the Surface Design Show in London’s Business Design Centre (7-9 Feb ‘17).

Now in its fourth year, Light School is organised by The Light Collective backed by the Institute of Lighting Professionals and you can attend talks and see the very

Habitat launches homewares collection for 2017

London’s fabulous new Design Museum opens on Kensington High Street

Habitat may have reduced its number of stores around the UK but the variety of its products remains extensive and the quality high - with eco friendly, recyclable materials and affordability at the heart of its ranges. The 2017 collection features clean lines for furniture and lots of blues nd pastels for accessories.

Pictured above: Calvo slim metal console, £325; ceramic vases from £20. www.habitat.com

The Design Museum has opened its 10,000 m2 new home on Kensington High Street, designed by architect John Pawson.

And it’s well worth a visit both for the building itself - which feels wonderfully spacious and airy - and the contents which take you on man’s journey through design across many sectors: from transport to furniture, fashion to tech, you get to see individual products and trace the continuum from where they started to where they’re at today.

Don’t miss the Designer Maker User permanent display on the top floor...

The Design Museum, founded

by Sir Terence Conran in ‘89, was previously based in Shad Thames near Tower Bridge.

Deco mag 3

art of felt

The art of felt Artist Lucy Storrs ‘paints’ with felt to create beautiful, atmospheric and very tactile works

Above: Enticing Mountain, 70x94cms, wool, £880, part of Lucy Storrs’ new landscape collection. Below: Feeling At Home. www.lucystorrs.com

Painting a picture with..... felt? it’s not something many can do, but Lucy Storrs’ charming work shows the artistic possibilities of wool.

If you like the idea of an artwork that is somewhere between 2d and 3d, then you’ll love Storrs’ work. Being made from springy wet-felted wool, her pieces have a sense of life and movement - but they also have a delicacy and an ethereality that make them very interesting to look at. You do want to stand and stare.

While she’s not alone in working in felt, Storrs is highly accomplished in the technique and interest in her work is growing. ‘I had never come across work like mine and I got the idea for it about

it about 14 years ago when a friend’s chlid came home with a mouse he’d made at nursery using felt!

Storrs lives and works in London but grew up on a hill farm in Dartmoor and says sheep and wool have always featured large in her life. She likes to use British wool for her work, but it’s not available in the myriad colours of merino wool, so she does tend to use more of the latter.

‘I buy my wool in Yorkshire and buy it ready-dyed but before it’s spun into yard. So what I receive are what look like bags of candyfloss!’

Storrs’ latest pieces are landscapes featuring her favourite colours of the moment, pinks and greens.

Deco mag 4

Deco mag 5 Advertisement

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Deco mag 4

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Deco mag 4

Paul Warren Design Beautiful interiors with eco chic

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Deco mag 5

Hope yule love this!

Give a present that won’t be forgotten in a day or so..We have some quality ideas with eco credentials

Above: Midnattsol collection of ceramic and enamel tableware by Isak (isak.co.uk), from £10 Light: LED ‘filament’ 003 pendant set by Plumen £150, 10,000 hours of light approx (plumen.com) Far left: Christiana, original vintage ski poster, £550 at Antikbar (antikbar.co.uk) Far left, centre: Made in Wales, new Litelok bike lock, £85, 2.4lb weight, recyclable composite material, able to withstand heavy assault from bolt cutters! (litelok.com) Far left, bottom: Rose cushion made from vintage fabric at L’Atelier Natalia Willmott, £45 (nataliawillmott.co.uk) Bottom row, centre: Danish Retro mugs in six colours, £7.50 at Rigby & Mac Bottom right: Parkminster natural reed diffusers come in various subtle scents, aromatic oils, £18, at Cottage In The Hills Left, centre: digitallyprinted on organic cotton and perfect for hydrangea fans, the Eden cushion

by Reflect & Repeat offers vibrant colour and a modern graphic look.

40x40cm, £55 (reflectandrepeat.com).

Below: Tulip tumbler by glass artist Emma Britton, £29 (emmabritton.net)

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Far left: Rusty angel wings, £5 a pair at Velvet & Dash. Made from metal offcuts left outside to rust (velvet-dash.com) Left: The British Coast framed picture by UK screenprinters Bold & Noble, printed on recycled card, 40x30cm, £35 (boldandnoble.com) Far left, second down: modern designs for a funky table, ceramic coasters by Pushka Home, £7 each (pushkahome.com) Below: Seedball wild flower seedballs scatter them where you will, £5.99 a tin (seedball.co.uk) Bottom left: screen printed linen breadbag, made in Cornwall by Helen Round, £19.95(helenround.co.uk)

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Above: sustainable hand-rolled beeswax candles made in West Ireland by Mindful Productivity, from £4.95 (mindfulproductivity. net) Above right: Nudo Gift Adopt olive oil - adopt an olive tree in Italy for your friend or family member and they receive oil from it each year. From £39, Nudo Adopt (nudoadopt.com) Right: Handmade leather washbag, made in UK, by Teales, £54.99 (teales.co.uk)

Deco mag 7

profile: Max McMurdo

Take back control!

Designer Max McMurdo, founder of Reestore, author and rising telly star, thinks we could all do with being a bit more self-sufficient when it comes to furnishing our homes.

Interview: Abby Trow. Portrait photograph: Mike Trow

The word ‘upcycling’ makes as many people roll their eyes in horror as open them in wonderment.

It’s become a bit of a buzz word...a buzz hobby..a buzz little business to be in; but for those who say they like to live with things that look professional and not put together by a five-year-old or a really hopeless Heath Robinson, upcycled wares are to be avoided like the plague.

Max McMurdo is a designer who wants to call off the cynicism around upcycling, not because he believes anything made from a pallet must be good, but because it makes sense on many levels not to throw away perfectly good materials - since throwing away usually means adding to landfill mountains.

‘My motivations are about the environment, but I also see that the way things are going, people need to be able to make things for themselves.’ (And he is a man who made himself a floating home out of a shipping container..featured in George Clarke’s Amazing Spaces on Channel 4.)

Because lots of us haven’t been getting richer, but poorer, certainly since the ‘08 crash, and that need to conserve that was innate in people well into the 1970s is definitely what’s needed if you’re in that group who’re finding money’s too tight to mention, thinks McMurdo.

Ah, but there’s a bit problem in that people aren’t handy any more; most of us can’t even change a plug let alone hang a shelf or lay some tiles! ‘That’s true and I was fortunate to have a dad who was practical and taught me my handy skills,’ says McMurdo. ‘And I loved design technology at school, which taught me a lot - I’m very concerned this subject has been marginalised by changes to the school curriculum, because we all need it!’

So McMurdo’s solution is for people to make a conscious effort to learn to do things around the house and to learn by doing and by getting things wrong and by having another go. ‘There are lots of conflicting things going on here. For a start, we’re afraid of using tools,

especially things like noisy drills - and that goes back to not learning use them in school. We also expect things to be right first time so lose patience and heart too quickly.

‘I don’t accept that some people are born handy and most aren’t. We can all learn to do things perfectly well, but we need to give it time and to practise. And the satisfaction is immense when you‘ve mastered a task yourself and don’t have to pay someone huge amounts to come and do it for you.’

The financial imperative could be the driver behind the rise of the upcycling movement, if calling it a movement’s not OTT..and that has a knock-on positive impact on the environment.

‘I don’t see myself as an eco warrior, more a bit of a treehugger, but what motivates me is what I really hate, which is waste.

‘So my design work is focused on using what we already have. And the challenge for me is to design and make cool contemporary stuff in a way that respects the planet.’

McMurdo studied product design and visualisation at Bournemouth University and after graduating went to Cologne to work as a car designer.

He soon became dismayed by the lack to will to produce eco-friendly cars and at overmanning in the wrong departments - ‘there seemed to be 4,000 people designing one car’...so after two years he returned home, fired up by a wish to work on smaller design projects and to be a designer who didn’t make more waste.

‘I found furniture offers a more manageable scale and it’s also a very demanding field because we ask so much of a piece of furniture. Think how strong it has to be yet it should be lightweight and not cost a lot.’

And his own interest in using recycled materials led him to design some pieces that were met with such a positive response that he set up his furniture business, Reestore, based in Bedfordshire. It offers singular pieces of upcycled furniture, such as the shopping trolley chair, or the bathtub chaise

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‘For me, I define upcycling as adding value through design.’

Above: jelly moulds are perfect for that industrial look lampshade. Below right: a pallet box seat

Above: Christmas antlers made from bits of waste wood and metal pipe Below: a plastic bowls, metal swivel legs and some offcuts of fake grass and voila, a chair!

longue, pieces which are very well made. ‘I think a big mistake people make when upcycling is to neglect the finish. You need to sand, you need to paint, you need to really work on the detail and if anything, an upcycled piece requires more meticulous attention than when working with new materials.’

McMurdo - who appeared on Dragon’s Den in 2007 and came away for 50 grand - has, though, had to stop taking orders for Reestore products at the moment as he’s finding himself a rising television star - not that he uses the word star.

He’s appeared with Kirstie Allsopp on Channel 4’s Fill Your Home For Free, he has a new series for Channel 4 coming out next year, he’s done work for the Discovery Channel, and he gives talks at events such as Grand Designs Live. And he has taken

up an invitation to work with Sugru, the mouldable glue people - adding that he told them he wouldn’t do anything for them until he’d attached a teapot to one of his glass doors using Sugru. If it was still stuck fast three months later they’d talk, if it wasn’t, they wouldn’t. It was.

McMurdo also wants to help tackle homelessness and he works with homeless charity Emmaus, visiting their shops to show customers how they can put new life and style into second-hand furniture. ‘Though it amuses me that people often ignore the G-plan piece and pick up something plastic...I have to point out in the right direction!’

Deco mag 9

british craft

Brilliant British craft!

We’re all going crazy for craft thanks to the amazing skills of our designer-makers

Above: handmade lampshade by Julia Kilminster

British homes are becoming paeans to fine craftsmanship, as more of us turn avid collectors of ceramics, glassware, woodwork and myriad styles of artwork - all made by our home-grown designer-makers.

The abundance of craft fairs around the UK is testament to the thriving craft market and a visit to any of them shows just how talented our makers are. Some have trained at art school, others are self-taught, but the results are the same: huge diversity, inspiring quality and professionalism.

Ceramics is very much in the limelight, thanks to shows such as Ceramic Art London/York and ceramics are always a big part of the Handmade in Britain fairs.

Spring Fling in Dumfries & Galloway is a great place to see Scottish craft, while the West Country is well served by the Cornwall Design Fair and the Contemporary Crafts Festival in Bovey Tracey, Devon. Not to mention the Craft show at London’s Olympia.

So many craftspeople deserve a mention, such as ceramicists Adam Frew, Sophie Cook, Ali Tomlin, Yuta Segawa and Nicola Tassie; textile and mixed media artist Corinne Phillipps, glass artist Juli Bolaños-Durman, and wirework artist Helaina Sharpley.

Top: embroidered mixed media artwork

by Cornwall-based Corinne Phillips Left: ceramics

by Nicola Tassie Below: glassware by Juli Bolanos-Durman Bottom right: Yuta Segawa’s miniature ceramic pots Below, centre: Lampost by wirework artist Helaina Sharpley

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Deco Promotion

Lüks Linen: ethical, natural affordable luxury

Thick fluffy towels are delicious but there are disadvantages to them, the obvious ones being their weight and the time they take to dry.

Which is part of the reason why Rachel Ward, founder of Lüks Linen, fell in love with Turkish peshtemal towels.

She loved their long history and their practicality: they were woven for use in the hammams and so don’t weigh much and dry very quickly.

For frequent travellers, they take up very little space in a suitcase and they can have many identities - they can be towels, throws, blankets, scarves, baby wraps and picnic blankets, while Ward is also offering cushion covers made from peshtemals.

Peshtemals have been woven on hand-looms in communities throughout Turkey for generations, explains Ward, using locally-grown cotton. While this cotton hasn’t been certified organic, it is mountain-grown in parts of the country.

Lüks Linen works with small family weavers to high ethical and fair trade standards.

Prices for peshtemal products are very reasonable,

Above: Lüks Linen cotton peshtemals come in a wide range of colours, sizes and weaves, though the most recognizable is the diamond pattern

starting at £22 for a towel.

Look out for the distinctive traditional diamond weave and you can choose from a wide variety of colours that range from subtle neutrals to stunning jewel brights.

www.lukslinen.com

Deco mag 11

fire retardant chemicals When you buy a chair, sofa or mattress, do you think about the fire retardant chemicals in the product? More than likely such a thought never crosses your mind and if you do happen to notice the label saying ‘fire-resistant’ on it you may well enjoy peace of mind.

But more people are starting to question the need for furniture sold in the UK to be so heavily treated with flame retardant chemicals, some of which are highly toxic - particularly the brominated ones (BFRs) used to back-coat upholstery fabric; so toxic in fact that DecaBDE, the main BFR for furniture, been banned in the US and heavily restricted in the EU. So UK furniture bought within the past few years will contain high levels of DecaBDE. House fires in the UK are, mercifully, rare and fires that start in furniture rarer still - in the case of the latter it’s fewer than 50 a year.

The powerful global chemical industry argues that it’s FRs that have made furniture fires such a rarity; however health lobbyists, scientists and green campaigners point to two other factors which explain why sofa fires have become so rare: *far fewer people smoke in the UK (it’s around 20 per cent of the adult population compared to 75 per cent in the 1960s) and of those who do, they tend to smoke outside rather than in their homes. * More than 90 per cent of UK homes have a fire alarm.

These factors, says Terry Edge, a former civil servant at the Dept for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), now the Dept for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) mean it’s time

to re-examine our furniture fire regulations, which were introduced in 1988 and haven’t been revised since.

(Though BEIS does have a consultation document out for consideration by industry at the moment.)

Terry Edge has been a key driver for change to our fire regs because for 12 years he was the lead civil servant on the Furniture and Furnishings (Fire) (Safety) Regulations (FFRs), and his extensive knowledge has led him to conclude that: *we’re being sold products billed as fire-safe when they’re not. * we’re being sold products that are treated unnecessarily with very harmful chemicals, some of which are classed as neuro-toxic.

‘I believe there is a case for giving people a choice of whether to buy furniture that’s chemically-treated or not, as happens in the US,’ says Edge. ‘You can make furniture fire-safe without using FR chemicals, though it would be more expensive to produce than cheaper products that are FR treated.

But with the health issues around FR chemicals, people should have the information so they can make a choice.’

Edge says he was made aware of the risks to human health posed by FR chemicals after meeting environmental health scientist Dr Arlene Blum who set up the Green Science Policy Institute in California in 2008.

She has devoted much of her career to taking on the chemical industry in the US and her research has resulted in changes to FR laws in the US and the banning of certain groups of FR chemicals from furniture and baby/ children’s products.

‘Arlene’s work has shown how dangerous FR chemicals are.

Very simply the chemicals break away from the foam or fabric and become part of the dust in the air. The particles settle on surfaces our homes and we touch them and ingest them,’ says Edge. ‘And in the case of a fire, they emit a toxic smoke.’

Why do we have FRs? UK furniture fire regs were introduced in 1988 in response to an increase in house fires attributed to furniture being filled with inexpensive and highly flammable polyeurethane foam. This foam is a potential fire hazard if not FR treated because it melts rapidly when heated and becomes a liquid, causing a fire to reach peak heat release within 2-3 minutes - the point at which a fire will ignite everything, so to speak.

So the government brought in the FFRs, which remain the toughest in the world and comprise three tests for flammability: - one for fillings (the CRIB 5 test you may have heard of) and a ‘match’ and ‘cigarette’ test for cover fabrics.

And it’s the match test that Edge is particularly concerned with because he maintains until it’s changed, unsafe furniture will continue to be sold to consumers.

‘I’m not saying all chemicals should be banned from our furniture.

The chemicals used to make foam less flammable are, on the whole, not too problematic regarding toxicity.

‘But the match test and the cigarette test allowed the chemical industry to argue that cheap fabrics used to cover a piece of furniture should be back-coated with FRs and these tend to be

brominated, which are known to be very dangerous to health.’

Since 1988 the match test has involved holding a match flame to a piece of fabric wrapped around foam that has NOT been FR treated. The flame is held against it for 20 seconds and to pass the test, any fire should have gone out within two minutes. With the cigarette test, any smoulder should have gone out within one hour if fabric is to pass as fire-safe. So in short, most fabrics will have to be back-coated with FRs if they’re to pass the match test, since they burn easily if you put a match to them.

Edge says this nearly 30-year-old match test simply does not achieve safe furniture and must be changed.

‘For a start, it’s ridiculous to test using foam that’s not FR treated, or combustionmodified as it’s known in the trade, because no UK furniture is made using untreated foam. And the test doesn’t take into account that many furniture makers use a (usually polyester) fibre wrap layer between the fabric and the foam both for comfort and ease of construction. This layer makes furniture highly flammable because it’s not compressed so it creates a layer of air which would fan the flames in case of a fire.

‘The test doesn’t deal with the known industry problem of FR undertreatment. So to save money, fabric will be given a minimal coating of FRs which won’t stop the off-gassing but in the case of a fire, the FRs don’t do the job they’re supposed to.

‘The third issue is to do with Scotchgarding - that treatment you’re offered with new furniture that’s supposed to make it stain-resistant.

Deco mag 12

Fire retardancy chemicals: help or hazard?

Former civil servant Terry Edge says the UK government is ignoring evidence that our FR tests are not fit for purpose and consumers are being sold furniture that’s unsafe

Well, Scotchgard is made with silicon which is highly flammable, so what you’re doing with Scotchgard is adding back chemicals that make the furniture incredibly flammable. ...I would definitely advise people decline Scotchgard treatment.

New match test could reduce by half amount of FRs use on fabrics Edge worked with product safety test expert Steve Owen at independent test house Intertek to develop a new match test that would actually make furniture firesafe but would mean many cover fabrics would no longer need to be back-coated with BFRs. It would also make a separate cigarette test unnecessary duplication.

‘This test would reduce FRs in cover fabrics by up to 50 per cent immediately, and probably to nothing in the longer run since the test allows for the use of new fibres and weaving technologies to ensure fire resistance,’ says Edge.

The new test involves wrapping upholstery fabric around FR-treated foam covered with a polyester fibre wrap cover made to a set specification. The test closely replicates today’s furniture construction methods and

because the foam filling is treated with FR chemicals, when the untreated fabric is ignited, the match flame goes out when it reaches the foam because, says Edge, the FRs in the foam are doing their job.

Edge says the new test was itself rigorously tested and to date no one has come forward with any technical objections or reasons why it doesn’t work: ‘We could be keeping huge quantities of FR chemicals out of fabrics used in the our furniture.

‘The rest of the world does not have a small flame test for furniture and you have to ask yourself why there’s been so little call for a change to regulations that haven’t been revised since 1988.’

It’s a statement of fact that FRs are worth billions of pounds to the chemical industry and the more products it can persuade government should be treated with them, the more money it makes. So it has a vested interest in maintaining the status quo and Edge says he’s seen at first hand how it works hard to keep people on-side.

burning building. But Arlene Blum’s research brings this assertion into question and she says it’s toxic smoke from FRs that kills people in fires.

LEARN MORE

Terry Edge, who was eased out of his job in 2014 after bringing a whistle-blower case against BIS, says what’s important for consumers is health and there should be more open debate around the heavy use of chemicals in products we all have in our homes that are known to be harmful to humans - and the environment. ‘And with furniture, the picture is very different today compared to the ‘80s - when only around five per cent of people had a smoke alarm at home.

To read the document on Intertek’s proposed changes to the Match Test, cut and paste this link into your browser: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/ attachment_data/file/416984/ bis-15-150-technical-annex-systematic-rationale-for-modification-of-the-furniture-furnishings-fire-safety-regulations-in-relation-to-schedule-4-schedule-5. pdf

‘And thanks to the work of Arlene Blum in the US, far more is known about the dangers of FR chemicals.’

THE GREEN SCIENCE POLICY INSTITUTE: www.greensciencepolicy.org

FIRA - The (British) Furniture Industry Research Association www.fira.co.uk CHEM TRUST www.chemtrust.org.uk

http://terryedge.weebly.com

Its line is always that FRs save lives by slowing the development of a fire and giving people crucial extra minutes to escape from a

Deco mag 13

flamingo homewares

Pretty flamingos ‘Flamingo’ has been one of the most widely searched terms on the John Lewis website this year and sales of all things flamingo have rocketed. So if flamingos amuse and delight you, we have some eco-friendly homewares that celebrate this funny and pretty bird

Above: Pretty In Pink, oil on canvas painting by London-based artist Sarah Elder, a former BBC Wildlife Artist of the Year. Sarah loves painting flamingos on her travels in Africa and she offers high quality prints of her work for £150. She also has her work printed on silk scarves and shawls so you can wear a flamingo with pride. www.sarahelderart.com

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Deco mag 13

Top left: Sanderson non-woven Flamingo wallpaper, £57 a roll, printed in UK a roll Top right: Cole & Son Flamingo wallpaper from its New Contemporary collection, printed in UK with water-based inks, £77 a roll Centre left: hand silk-screened flamingo organic cotton teatowel by Bristol-based Rolfe & Wills, £12, which uses eco friendly inks Centre right: Flamingo print fabric on 100 per cent linen by UK fabric house Clarke & Clarke, £19 per metre Right: flamingo linen cushions, hand-screen printed in UK

by Rapture & Wright, £65 each.

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Small space chic Limited space is a price we pay for living in a big city. So if you’ve bought yourself a shoebox, best consult an interior designer for some clever and beautiful storage.

Text: Abby Trow

Above: this bedroom was created from a small roof terrace and it has a wall of bespoke wood wardrobes offering plenty of storage. Play Associates was asked to turn a tiny studio in London into a modern pied-a-terre for a couple whose refurb budget for the whole flat was £50,000.

Rory Macpherson, founder of interior design studio Play Associates, was asked to transform a ‘tiny and unexciting’ studio in London’s exciting Notting Hill into a bijou one-bedroom flat.

The project involved turning a small roof terrace into a bedroom and putting in lots of clever storage. An air filtration system was also fitted, reclaimed wood flooring was installed and FSC-woods, LED lighting and eco paints were used throughout.

And before you ask - the budget for what was a major renovation job was £50,000.

‘Our brief was to create an engaging space that makes small scale living a pleasure,’ says Macpherson, who says small flats can be a tricky design challenge and one where interior designers can

prove invaluable because their training allows them to get the most from the space.

‘We had to design carefully-shaped joinery to allow as much storage as possible, while maintaining an open feeling to what is, fortunately, a light-filled apartment.

We also like to give our clients living space that is healthy - there’s so much evidence now about sick building syndrome - so we incorporated an air filtration system to benefit the wellbeing of our client.

Macpherson explains that with this flat, a tiny space became a little less tiny after the roof terrace was turned into a bedroom. ‘We did extend the space by some 60 per cent, from 215 to 350 sq ft and the flat was transformed

by having a reasonable-sized separate bedroom.’

Go with the flow Macpherson says the first thing to do with any room and studio flats are essentially a room, is to work on the flow.

‘That means deciding what works best where according to how people will actually be living. So you need to think about how the occupants will be moving around in a space.’

Storage Macpherson says storage is, of course, crucial to successful small-space living; however, don’t go overboard: ‘You need to design builtin storage that looks good but doesn’t occupy most of the flat! I urge people not to

Above: the bathroom is small but perfectly formed with tiled surfaces and a shower in the bath. It has wooden cupboards on one all and a wide wall-hung basin

Deco mag 16

small space design

Right: If you have a small space, design it with a few stunning pieces.

The kitchen features a sink/workspace unit housed in a brass frame with a Marmoreal (an engineered marble) workop that brings colours to the space Below, left: the pink wool upholstered banquette has storage space under the seat, while the table top is made from recycled cheeseboards Below, centre: An alcove is perfect for a lovely wooden bookcase with a cupboard underneath Below, right: the herringbone wood floors are made from solid reclaimed oak. Find reclaimed parquet at salvage yards such as Lassco.

Finishing touches Artworks by Tania Ling (www.tanialing.com) Compact sofa from Heal’s Normann Copenhagen wool rug, Menu side table Flos lamps

overdo it because otherwise a small flat will become too boxy and you can’t live well in it.’

‘And I think small spaces need art on the walls and crucially they need good lighting for different moods.

Macpherson says the kitchen is the heart of this home, with clever full-height integrated FSC-oak veneer storage along one wall, built by joiner David Vivian, which houses a mini Fisher & Paykel

dish-drawer and a fridge/ freezer, as well as offering plenty of cupboard space.

But what gives the feeling of being a kitchen rather than a strip of cupboards is a beautiful sink/worktop unit painted dark green that sits in a brass frame and has a stunning multi-coloured Marmoreal worktop - an engineered marble by designer Max Lamb manufactured by London-based Dzek. The

ceiling and pendant lights are by Areti.

The flat has a sloping ceiling and Macpherson clad it with tongue and groove timber. ‘If there are quirky features, it’s best to make the most of them so they’re attractive to look at.’ Tongue and groove can be painted easily and looks homely, as well as adding a layer of insulation.

The six-seater dining table, has a top made from recycled cheeseboards, while a

bespoke upholstered banquette has storage under the seat.

Play Associates use natural, sustainable and recycled materials. So the flat’s herringbone floors are reclaimed solid oak, natural paints have been used throughout and an air filtration was incorporated into bespoke partition wall between the bedroom and the living space to keep the flat ventilated with fresh air.

Deco mag 17