Designer's notes

A Lovely Young Couple's New Build Living Room

I was instructed by my lovely clients Manmeet and Nimish Nagpal to design and style the living room in their brand new home. It is always lovely to work on a blank canvas and we started the project with an empty room. A key ask of the brief was to create a real wow factor when entering the home and happy and colourful interiors that my clients could enjoy daily. Planning the space correctly was essential as given the position of the front door and opening arc, it was not possible to put a sofa against the largest wall in the room. Consideration of the scale and proportion of the furniture in the room was key to ensure that we did not overwhelm the sitting area with oversized pieces of furniture. Given the above, we choose a lovely off-white sofa and two beautiful green velvet armchairs to furnish our conversational area. The pièce de resistance in this scheme is the stunning top-heavy floral wallpaper used on the entire hallway wall to great effect. It was a bold decision and I credit my young clients for having the courage and faith to run with it. Given the scale of the wallpaper, we were keen to showcase the statement wall and still use the large hallway for practical purposes. We used a large console table to span the wall - this provides room for storage and surface area for a table lamp and other styling objects. Further down the hallway, I wanted to create a beautiful focal point with a practical purpose of having a chair to sit on to put on shoes, for example. I absolutely love the corner pairing of the gorgeous velvet armchair, the green glass mirror and the floor lamp. Together, they work in unison to create a stunning vignette that further accentuates the wallpaper behind. On the wall to the side of the sofa, we added a custom painting. Painted on gold foil, it features a vibrant composition that echoes the vibrant wallpaper. We added a two-layered coffee table that allowed us to style it to perfection.