Period Property Interior Design
Location:
Norwich, Norfolk
Project Type:
Residential
Services:
Fully project managed renovation
The Brief
This Living room project forms part of a larger house renovation project for a Victorian property.
The brief was to make better use of the space and have clearly defined and usable areas. Much needed additional storage and bookcases were required.
About The Project
This Victorian living room, originally two separate rooms combined into one, presented challenges with its elongated layout, curved wall, and distinctive curved window—making furniture placement difficult and leaving part of the space under-utilised. To optimise functionality, I designed bespoke, hand-painted bookcases and tall storage cabinets that seamlessly integrated with the room's unique features, including uneven walls and brick columns. The transformation resulted in a harmonious blend of classic and contemporary elements, enhancing both the room's functionality and visual appeal.Rebecca Coulby
About The Project
The previous living room was originally two rooms that had been knocked into one, which created a rather long space with some awkward recesses and angles, including a curved wall and a beautiful curved window. This had made it difficult for my clients to fit in furniture and make full use of the space, and resulted in one end of the room being unused.
To make best use of this space, I designed bespoke bookcases and tall storage cabinets that were hand-made and hand painted. My skilled team had to work around uneven walls, curves, brick columns and lintels. These built-in storage areas, together with the new made to measure ceiling coving and ceiling roses helped create newly defined and clean lines around the whole room.
For the colour palette, I wanted to add some classic and rich colours. We painted all the bespoke cabinetry in Farrow and Ball ‘Railings’ with brass hardware, and the curtains were charcoal velvet. The original pine floorboards were restored and revived and the rest of the soft furnishings and prints on the wall added the wall added some pops of colour. The Herman Miller ceiling lights chosen by my clients provided a mid-century classic design element to the room that was both understated and beautiful.
I am delighted with how this room looks now, it seems to get better with each visit to the property!
What Our Client Say
We contacted Rebecca about a full-house renovation and how best to break the work down into more manageable chunks. Our initial consultations were fantastic, creative and in-depth, with Rebecca reviewing the whole house, our preferences, priorities, tastes and needs.
She produced amazing designs for our first chunk of work, to the living room and kitchen, covering almost the whole ground floor. Her ideas transformed both the rooms, making an awkward living/dining room feel like one lovely big living room, and making the kitchen/diner contain all the practical storage and space we needed. The designs completely fit our modern/modernist/minimalist/nordic style and we were extremely excited to get the work done.
We moved out for a good proportion of the work and felt completely in safe hands, well looked after and happy to just answer questions as needed. There was some unexpected work (lead pipes) and an appalling sub-floor in the kitchen. Where possible Rebecca always gave us choices about what we could leave, and what had to be done, and we were not surprised by these things cropping up in an older property anyway. At all times Rebecca has been an amazing communicator, keeping us informed of all the details, explaining everything, getting confirmation, never assuming an answer to a question, and really listening carefully. The whole team do not settle for, or push for the easy options when you're in favour of doing something a bit more complex. Everyone had an amazing attitude and the focus was very much on making sure we were happy with the work.
The quality of the work itself was outstanding. I feel like I don't trust anyone else to touch the house now! Everything is high quality, solidly built and beautifully done. As we both work from home, we're here all the time and it makes a huge difference to our quality of life. We can't wait to get the next round of work done and massive thanks to Rebecca, Lloyd and the team. We won't be using anyone other than Coulby Interiors to do future work. THANK YOU!'
Ms Foulger
