A Georgian house in Islington that combines old-fashioned English style with contemporary bite

‘My brief from Harry was simple,’ laughs Christabel. ‘It was essentially, “I like what you did with your flat, so feel free to do the same with mine.”

As the artist took on Harry's project, what began as friendly advice - helping him sift through eBay bids and paint swatches - evolved into a full interior renovation. ‘Eventually, I was given full reign,’ she enthuses. ‘I thought initially I was just going to make a few concepts for him, maybe do some Google hunts and make suggestions. But I became much more involved - he was out of the country, and I had begun liaising with the builders. It was an exciting learning curve.’ Christabel - whose multidisciplinary practice encompasses collage, printmaking, textiles and more recently, ceramic sculpture - took to her first interior design project with gusto, reconfiguring the layout and injecting the space with the inventive energy and idiosyncrasy of her work.

Armchairs were covered in mismatching fabrics -one in a canary yellow from Romo and the above from Pierre Frey. A pink ceramic by Christabel is at home in the alcove.

Mark Roper

‘When I first visited the house I was struck by the abundance of light. I knew immediately it could take quite a lot of colour,’ she says. There were a few must-haves. Initial designs centred around a warm orange that eventually enveloped the central stairwell. ‘I knew this colour had to be in this house,’ Christabel explains. ‘By using this shade in the central part of the home the space became anchored, letting the other colours around it sing. It is astonishing to me how much colour changes the feeling of a space without doing anything structural.’

Dainty mouldings added to the walls by Christabel frame a work by the fashion photographer Tim Walker. The motif is echoed in the upholstery of the pink sofa, a Facebook Marketplace find. The sofa fabric is from Romo and the coral-red piping from Samuel & Sons in a colour drawn from the picture above.

Mark Roper

The project unfolded at a whirlwind pace through 2023. ‘What I loved about working with Harry,’ Christabel reflects. ‘Was how I could suggest a pink chitz sofa with a blue wall, and it would be an instant yes. He dares to be different, with that rare English flamboyance. It's why we're friends.’ This spirit is particularly in evidence in the first floor sitting room, painted a duck egg blue from Papers & Paints with ruffled chartreuse blinds in glossy a moiré jacquard taffeta from Turnell and Gigon. Dainty mouldings were applied to the walls to frame a work by the fashion photographer Tim Walker and a vintage Suzani. A similar motif was echoed on the bespoke upholstery of the sofa, an Facebook Marketplace find, reupholstered in a pink fabric from Romo with coral-red piping.

Where budget was tight she leant on affordable solutions. Much of the furniture was sourced secondhand from antiques markets, The Saleroom and eBay. ‘Because Harry and I are friends, it was a collaborative effort to hunt down the right objects, which was fun.’ To keep costs down floorboards were painted, white in the sitting room, and black in the hall. ‘I love a painted floorboard,’ she adds, ‘it gives spaces a new dimension while saving costs and keeping original floors intact, which I think are rather pretty, even with their billowing cracks.’

A view from the hallway into the sitting room, where colour takes centre stage. Christabel's love for painted floorboards is evident. The hallway colour is from Paper & Paints.

Mark Roper

Upstairs the biggest spatial transformation was in Harry’s bedroom, which was reorganised to accommodate a tiny, ingenious wet room, carved from the void of the adjacent staircase and accessed by a ladder to the right of the bed. ‘Because the bedroom is already a bold colour, we made the little en-suite a really clean, bright marble chamber,’ says Harry. On the walls of the bedroom Christabel convinced him to exhibit his ‘Beach’ series of photography - portraits taken during his travels to queer nudist beaches from Fire Island to Sitges. ‘What's the point of making stuff if you can't enjoy it in your home now and again?’

In both the downstairs loo and main bathroom Christabel used classic Sibyl Colefax & John Fowler wallpaper designs - the smaller scale ‘Wendle Forest’ in aqua downstairs, and larger scale ‘Squiggle’ in lemon yellow upstairs - balancing the old fashioned feeling of the design with glossy tongue-and-groove panelling and flashes of red. The antique Chanel cabinet on the wall of the main bathroom is ‘Harry in a nutshell,’ Christabel laughs. ‘A bit old school and prim but also glam. I wanted the scheme to have moments of texture and drama. Nothing matches, but it works.’

@christabelmacgreevy