Behind the scenes of the Hampstead renovation project that earned ex-Horton and Garton agent Anna Ellis a coveted spread in 25 Beautiful homes
In 2008, Brackenbury Village resident Anna Ellis went back to school to study Architectural Interior Design.
After graduating with merit, Anna Ellis Interior Design was born and her West London practice created.
Despite having two young children at home and immediately attracting customers, Anna’s love of homes and first-hand knowledge of the West London market led her to also take on a role at our King Street office in 2018.
“I loved being at Horton and Garton, I really enjoyed looking around the properties… It was great because I knew the houses, I knew the market and I knew everything about the school catchment areas because I’d just been through it all myself.”
In 2018, Anna received a call from Todd. He wanted to buy a new apartment that was in great need of the Anna Ellis treatment. “He’d found this place in Hampstead, and it needed everything, complete gut.”
Luckily for Todd, he’d caught Anna just as her youngest was starting nursery.
“Never get a Macerator.”
The first steps when an Interior Designer is given a project, is to work out what the client needs from their new home.
“It’s not just about the curtains and the colours, it’s about the function-how you can get your waste away and do the electrics etc. For example, some people want to put a toilet anywhere they like in a property. Of course this can be done with a macerator, but never ever have a macerator. You might find someone who’s happy to fit it, but you will never find someone to fix it.”
“Todd wanted an ensuite added to the bedroom. It was quite an ask but we could do it and we wouldn’t need a macerator.”
Once the practicalities are out of the way, the fun can begin.
“Then you take the brief from the client, what they want, what they want to achieve and how they live in that space” and use that to discuss design plans together.
However, for a project to work, the customer has to be prepared to listen to the designer.
“With the kitchen, Todd had a very specific idea of what he wanted which just wasn’t compatible with the rest of the brief he’d told me. He wanted it to be all white with a black worktop and a black and white chequered harlequin floor. I told him he could have it, but it just wouldn’t go with anything or relate to the rest of the property.”
Eventually, after lengthy discussions, Anna presented Todd with an alternative kitchen design involving darker colour options that would fit in much better with the Art Deco style running through the other rooms and thankfully, he listened.
Blues are in, greys are out.
It was this push for darker Art Deco colours that lead to Anna and the apartment getting a feature in ‘25 Beautiful Homes’.
“It’s very difficult to get a property featured in a magazine, but because it was blue and Deco they wanted to get it into print as soon as possible. Blue and Art Deco are ridiculously on trend at the moment, which is interesting because the colours we used were decided in February 2019.”
A year later and Anna’s designs are still bang on trend and in demand. “Greys are sort of out now, no one’s really doing anything with grey. Trendwise it’s blue, and very dark blue colours and rose gold, chrome isn’t as popular as it used to be.”
Most Interior Designers, would experience an upswing in demand following a feature like this in a National magazine, however most features wouldn’t be published during a national pandemic.
“I’d love to do more refurbishments and property development, but there obviously aren’t many residential projects anymore thanks to COVID-19.”
DIY design tips
With more people inside now than ever, many are turning to improvements they can do around their home themselves. For this, Anna has some recommendations.
“Given that everyone is at home all the time, now is a great time to see how the changing light throughout the day affects the paint colour in each room. Choose your colour and paint four pieces of paper and stick them on each wall. Then, as the light changes you can see how much the shade changes. Light is a massive influence on the paint colour.”
But so is paint quality.
“Farrow and Ball have lovely colours, but for darker shades I prefer Little Greene paint company, and that’s the brand I used for this project.”
Has this inspired you to give your home an Anna Ellis makeover? See more of Anna’s work on her website.
