Rising Designer Sophie Ashby Transforms a Georgian-Era Home in London for her Young Family
Just a few strides from the bustle of Brick Lane in London’s East End—where the sweet, spicy scent of the street’s popular Bangladeshi curry homes fills the air—hides a magnificent Georgian-period gem of a property that British interior designer Sophie Ashby and her spouse, trend designer Charlie Casely-Hayford, currently share with their daughter, Gaia, born last May possibly, and Casely-Hayford’s 7-year-previous daughter Rainbow when she comes to continue to be on weekends.
Possessing outgrown their one-bedroom condominium in West London, the spouse and children rented this put in February 2020, just weeks right before the world went into lockdown. “We could have acquired a household, but I knew it wouldn’t have been one I was satisfied to stay in for the following 5 to ten many years,” Ashby suggests. In its place, they made the decision to “sit restricted, plot and system,” she points out, whilst screening out the region for a potential long-lasting shift.
Cosseted by a verdant courtyard backyard garden of magnolia, fig, and bay trees, the previous brewer’s residence they now connect with household adjoins a modest pub and 19th-century brewery future door, now getting transformed by art duo Gilbert & George into a gallery. “I could not consider my eyes when we walked in,” Ashby remembers. The simplicity of the walls, ceilings, and flooring, washed with great neutral hues by the latest landlord, along with the “ancientness,” as Ashby describes it, of the house’s first thoroughly clean-lined, generously proportioned bones, was “so innovative,” she gushes. “I just imagined, We have obtained to make this perform.”
A Lakin Ogunbanwo photograph hangs earlier mentioned the sitting home hearth. A bespoke sectional in a yellow Pierre Frey velvet wraps about a cocktail table by dirk Van der kooij. sheep sculpture uncovered on Etsy huge ground lamp (in back again corner) from Bofred patchwork rug of classic kilims from Sister by Studio Ashby.
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Component of the house’s charm, which include fireplaces bordered with very Delft tiles and kitchen cabinets recycled from previous iroko-wood chemistry labs, owes much to the eclectic touches remaining powering by the late Jocasta Innes, creator of the seminal ’80s guideline to Do-it-yourself expert portray consequences Paint Magic, who rescued the residence from dereliction in the late ’70s. “The mix of Jocasta and our landlord’s fantastic flavor produced the great backdrop,” Ashby suggests. “It just spoke to us.”
So, apart from “tiny tweaks” like repainting a few cabinets and a flooring listed here and there, Ashby was free of charge to target on the furniture, lighting, and art. Into a significant-minimal combine of reupholstered vintage chairs and antique cupboards, reasonably priced substantial-avenue purchases and bespoke sofas, the designer injected
vivid brights these as fiery orange and banana yellow along with complex shades of fuchsia, sea eco-friendly, and gold, all impressed by the paintings and pictures, mainly by emerging artists, the few have hung on practically every single wall.
Ashby and husband Charlie Casely-Hayford
with little one Gaia and Casely-Hayford’s Daughter Rainbow
The entrance hall’s 1960s brass-and-etched-glass pendant was obtained on Etsy. The antique clock earlier mentioned the doorway was a present from Ashby’s father, and the tiger lender sculptures are from Liberty London.
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“It’s how just about every place starts,” claims Ashby of the couple’s prolonged-held mutual enjoy for art, given that each researched artwork heritage throughout college and Casely-Hayford interned at London’s prestigious White Cube gallery. Works by the likes of London painter Tomo Campbell, South African artist Lunga Ntila, and Spanish photographer Salva López draw a connective thread as a result of each space. Even the substantial relatives lavatory, in which a gallery-model installation of framed drawings and exhibition prints, mixed with classic home furnishings and modern lighting, feels “more like a dwelling space,” she states.