While studying at St Andrew’s in Scotland – the same university as the UK’s Prince William – Lucinda Sanford took a job at Farmore Interiors in the heritage town. This led to the opportunity to work with the British royal household. It helped fine-tune her project managing skills, she says. “We had to be very detailed in the seconds when planning the state visits and it was my role working for the deputy comptroller to type this up.”
She further honed her customer service skills working with big-name decorator Nina Campbell. Campbell trained with John Fowler at Sibyl Colefax and John Fowler, and made her name decorating Annabel’s nightclub in London – the epicentre of royalty – and its attendant Sloane Rangers in the 1970s and early 1980s. It also inculcated Sanford into the world of layering prints within the home – something she now revels in, bringing an urbane sensibility to country house chic.
She has put that learning to good use in her career as one of the UK’s foremost full design and build service decorators.
It’s a role that requires a lot of diplomacy, she says. “That first meeting to pitch for the job, it really is a fine balance; it’s quite hard to give enough to win but not [reveal] all ideas. Clients want a lot more responsibility for decisions. You go to people’s houses and it’s like looking at an Instagram feed. They are so used to seeing an idea when it’s done. My ideas are in my head, not on Insta. You need to trust your designer.”
Those who do are rewarded with properties that feel united in look, but not so much as to appear to have been done by a decorator.
But she didn’t set out to become one of the UK’s foremost decorating names. “I fell into it,” she says. “I liked interiors and loved building work. I started as a builder that could design and learned on the job.”
One of her first remodels was a flat in Pimlico that featured on TV show Homes Under the Hammer. Fast-forward 15 years and her work can be seen in private homes all over the world.
The reason? “I see space differently,” she says. “A lot of living is experience. I am better at doing homes now than I was 15 years ago.”
She says potential clients can be reactionary. “It’s a really big mistake to design a house as one space for tiny children. They grow up. They want doors and floors. They need to do homework in peace.”
A good layout is essential, she believes. She reworks and fine-tunes her floor plans many times to maximise the space for her clients. It’s something people don’t spend enough time on, she feels.
“A bigger room is not necessarily a better thing. There is only so much kitchen you need. Your island should still be just one metre from sideboard. Maybe you need to zone the place or have an additional wall for units. If you opt for a smaller kitchen, then you may have room for a study, a utility room, even a pantry, for example.” This is well illustrated in this Ranelagh redbrick.
While London-based, Sanford has worked with many Irish clients, usually first in the English capital and then continuing the relationship when the clients move home.
One such family returned to Dublin to live in Ranelagh but wanted to change the layout. The listed property meant they were limited in the structural changes they could make, but needed increased storage and space to accommodate four kids and a dog.
The house had strong bones, says Sanford, with good architectural detailing. It just needed a floor plan rethink, some colour drenching and her signature quirky plays with pattern.
The refurbishment included a large kitchen extension to the rear, which allowed her to play with the roles the traditional double reception rooms held.
The front room is now the formal sittingroom with a large opening leading through to the diningroom. So far it sounds like many terraced homes in the well-heeled parts of the capital. But, by removing the partition wall between the hall and diningroom, replacing it with Crittall-style glazing, she created a space that multitasks and creates a point of punctuation between the lounging side of the house and the cooking area.
When the glazing is shut, the room performs formal dinner duties. Fold back the doors and it becomes an inner vestibule where the dining table can be a place to drop bags. It also brings in lots of vital natural light to what is now essentially an inner room. Its original window is now a doorway that steps down into the kitchen.
But most family members will use the boot room route down into the kitchen. This a multitasking space that includes utility, pantry and a place to take off outdoor shoes and coats.
There is new parquet flooring underfoot, supplied by Trunk Flooring, an Irish company that has showrooms in Rathgar in Dublin, Battersea in London and San Francisco. Many of the lighting fixtures were supplied by Porta Romano.
The architraving and skirting now wear layers of glossy crimson red, Trilogy by Paint and Paper Library, to give a lacquered effect. The diningroom walls are papered in plaza orange – a vibrant colourway by Phillip Jeffries, a decor house renowned for its 3D-effect wallpapers. In addition to bringing in texture, the paper also dims down sound in a way paint does not. The oval wood dining table is surrounded by steel Tolix-look chairs instead of formal matching ones. The rooms have matching Chesney fireplaces.
The bay window in the livingroom had really beautiful shutters, which she felt needed curtains. “I wanted a clean look.”
The large Persian rug she found at auction at the Lots Road in Fulham, a place she and her team frequent as it is near her London office. Part of her look is to marry old things with new. It helps to give depth, she says. Some of the pieces are bought with a project in mind; others wait to find the right homes. All of her team constantly scour auctions for antique and vintage pieces to help anchor a room.
The family brought a lot of their furniture with them from their previous house in London. In the livingroom, many of the armchairs from the London residence have been reupholstered to suit this new house. The fabric on the blue armchair, for example, is Tay from Colefax and Fowler, while the trim is Squiggle by Sybil Colefax.
The walls here too are papered in a cream-coloured natural paper weave, Driftwood – another Phillip Jeffries design.
The sofas were bought new but from a UK high-street supplier, The Sofa Workshop, to save on costs. They were given a glow-up by using a customised fabric chosen by Sanford. “It’s not fully bespoke but it elevates it a bit,” and should be noted when putting in the order, she says.
In the bay window sits a raspberry velvet camel-backed two-seat sofa in a house fabric by the same company. All of the seating features oversized cushions, 50cm squares and 60cm by 40cm rectangles in a range of textured patterns, which look artfully casual but are all part of Sanford’s signature style.
If people want to achieve that certain look, they come to us, she says. When presenting small-scale samples of the fabrics, some clients can’t imagine it covering a wall, she says. “It looks out of scale in the sample and often they regret going for a slightly smaller scale.”
It’s become dangerously easy to source imagery. But the level of choice can just confuse, she says.
The kitchen is by Carlow-based Woodale Designs. It’s quite traditional with an industrial hood. The real change that made this house different is that she hived off space so that the kitchen didn’t start straight away. Between the hall and the kitchen is a little boot room with a Belfast sink. From the diningroom, the space steps down into a book nook, with shelving filled with cookbooks before you enter the heart of the home.
The bedroom features Manuel Canovas L’envol wallpaper on the gable wall. It is a tool she uses again and again in homes to create impact, especially on the eaves and ceilings of attic and dormer bedrooms and bathrooms. “It’s quite a cost-effective way to decorate,” she says. “Especially if you’re already living in the house. It’s less messy than painting and a noninvasive way to bring in a fresh look. In this bedroom if the walls were just painted; we’d have had to bring in a lot more stuff, more layers such as cushions, to get the same result.”
Costing projects is difficult as it depends on the scope of the works and calibre of fixtures and fittings selected. What is more quantifiable is her preliminary design for a house, which includes a floor plan, image montage and selections. It can help you start to hang designs and concepts with contractors, she says. “In effect, it’s a feasibility study with a bit more aesthetics to it.” This will cost £3,000-£6,000 (about €3,600-€7,250). lucindasanford.com
Wallpaper ways to wow
Other projects where Lucinda Sanford Design has used wallpaper to great effect.
Bathroom
Using Bowood by Colefax and Fowler on both the sloping eaves and ceiling creates a cosy effect in this dormer bathroom. A classic design, it is based on a document originally discovered by John Fowler at Bowood House, a grade 1 listed Georgian country house in Wiltshire. designs.colefax.com
Vanity
The paper on the landing walls is by Veere Grenney, in temple pink colourway.
Hall
This features a Fromental design, Fiamma in Salvesen Graham, inspired by needlepoint and using hundreds of brush strokes to mimic the individual stitches. fromental.co.uk
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