Houzz Tour: Family-Friendly Apartment in a Converted School
A reconfigured London home goes from cool couple’s hangout to fun family home
This fantastically fun apartment in a converted Victorian school in north London originally consisted of two huge living rooms, a tiny kitchen and two mezzanine bedrooms, exposed to the noise and light from downstairs. With a baby on the way, the creative couple who own this place wanted to make it more family friendly. They also wanted the interior decor to be highly original to showcase their collections and express the eclectic, funky style they love.
Designer Evros Agathou reconfigured the space to make a large kitchen and living area downstairs and three bedrooms upstairs, which are closed off for privacy and safety. The space features many of the couple’s vintage pieces, as well as upcycled furniture and quirky touches — lights made from colanders, anyone? It’s now a fun, fresh apartment that functions for family life and expresses its owners’ creativity.
Designer Evros Agathou reconfigured the space to make a large kitchen and living area downstairs and three bedrooms upstairs, which are closed off for privacy and safety. The space features many of the couple’s vintage pieces, as well as upcycled furniture and quirky touches — lights made from colanders, anyone? It’s now a fun, fresh apartment that functions for family life and expresses its owners’ creativity.
Custom pendant lights, made from brightly painted colanders, hang in the open-plan kitchen, bringing pops of color to this industrial-style space. “The owners didn’t want their home to look flashy,” Agathou says, “so we used something from everyday life. They are also massive foodies, so this idea further expresses their personalities.”
“When I started this project, the owners showed me their huge collection of pieces, gathered over the years,” Agathou says. “The challenge was to work out how to display them.” Here, old radios are hung against vivid vintage wallpaper, sourced on eBay. “We made a feature of them,” Agathou says, “while also giving them a permanent home.”
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The juicy colors of the lights are picked up in a rainbow umbrella and a lovely old gramophone — just one of the owners’ many vintage pieces. These details warm up the vast 16-foot-high walls behind, softening the drama. Simple white cabinets look fresh against the exposed brick.
The Howdens kitchen cabinets are teamed with salvaged and customized pieces. “The kitchen island is made from an old chest, which the owners were going to throw out because they didn’t know where to put it,” Agathou says. He fitted it with a countertop and gave it new life.
Individually colored floor-to-ceiling curtains dress the windows, which are about 11 feet high. “The curtains drape to the floor, which helps draws your eye down and reduce the sense of height,” Agathou says. They also help soften the acoustics in this huge space, and their green, amber and red (not seen) colors are a nod to the traffic light hanging near the entrance.
A mix of bench seating and wooden chairs boosts the informal feel of the dining space. Here, friends gather for meals and music, courtesy of the piano by the window. “The owners didn’t want their home to feel too glitzy and shiny,” Agathou says.
Creating a fun, personalized home was the motivation behind the project, and quirky details like this row of ties in the living space contribute to the apartment’s one-of-a-kind feel. “They all belong to the owner,” Agathou says. “He just takes them off to wear them, then slides them back on afterward.” The simple rail is made from doweling and hooks. “It’s part storage, part art installation,” says Agathou.
The owners and Agathou were eager to pack in plenty of fun details, including this Osborne & Little wallpaper featuring classic Penguin paperbacks, which runs up the stairway.
Agathou designed an entrance hall to give the apartment a family-home feel and prevent the sound of the owners’ piano playing from escaping into the communal areas. “We papered the walls with pages from vintage magazines the owners had collected over the years,” Agathou says. “They date from around World War II and have a nice sepia tone.”
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Who lives here: A creative couple and their baby
Location: Stoke Newington area of north London
Size: 3 bedrooms, 1 bathroom
The apartment, which was originally the headmaster’s office and part of the hall, now has one large, open-plan living space. Engineered oak boards and white walls form a backdrop for the owners’ personal pieces, including a collection of ties and an old traffic light. Agathou, creative director of Avocado Sweets Interior Design Studio, made the light fitting from low-energy Plumen bulbs. “You often see them used in commercial buildings,” he says, “but I thought, ‘Why not bring them into a residential property?’”