Cath Kidston's west London house has a clever approach to colour and print

Trailblazer Cath Kidston's pretty florals and stripes were a design phenomenon that brought retro English styleto homes around the world. Now, her delicate way with colour and print is evident throughout her art-filled house in west London
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A skylight brings in additional light and Crittall windows showcase views of the garden in the basement extension. The table, with a tablecloth in ‘Seaweed’ linen in pale grass from Cath’s company Joy of Print, is used by the couple for entertaining and playing cards. Regency dining chairs from Brownrigg are set off by a modern flatweave rug from Robert Stephenson. A large floral painting by Irish artist Oisín Byrne is flanked by two Porta Romana table lamps, with Rosi de Ruig lampshades, on a 1930s reproduction Hepplewhite table.Paul Massey

The house is in a tall, late-Georgian terrace that backs onto a large private garden square with views of a forest of old London plane trees filled with flocks of parakeets. Building work began a couple of months before the first lockdown, with much of the house being designed remotely. The lower-ground floor was extended, with Crittall doors opening onto the garden. Having initially planned the kitchen to be in this area, Cath changed her mind. ‘We realised we’d spend our life down there and end up with a dead space on the ground floor that we wouldn’t use,’ she explains. The kitchen is now the first room you enter as you come in the front door, with a sitting room-cum-library downstairs, including a large table where the couple entertain and play cards.

With presence of mind, Hugh had taken pictures of each piece of furniture from their old house. Locked down in Gloucestershire, Cath built the schemes for the London house on Pinterest. Her approach to decorating, unsurprisingly, centres around colour, with rooms organised into a connected palette anchored by the neutral kitchen and stairway, and slowly built up in layers through textiles and art. The result is spaces that hum with soft, happy energy. Perhaps this was part of the secret of her success as a designer: her deftness with colour and pattern, and her ability to harness it to create a joyful mood. For this is undoubtedly a happy house. In the sitting room and main bedroom, Cath says she ‘had a craving to use lilac, lime green and red’. It is not a palette for the faint-hearted, but she has managed to pull it off.

Made by Suffolk & Essex Joinery using the same Danish Douglas fir as the flooring, all sourced from Dinesen, the cabinetry, painted in ‘Joanna’ by Little Greene Paint & Paper, has a classic yet contemporary feel with a worktop in light Carrara marble. Metal lanterns from Decorative Collective are suspended above an iroko-topped island, against which the red-painted wooden Habitat stool stands out.

Paul Massey

The kitchen was inspired by her collection of red and blue ironstone china. The wooden units are subtle and contemporary, with all the working parts and appliances tucked out of view. Two armchairs have been stripped down to their calico and covered with antique ticking from Katharine Pole; the rug from Robert Stephenson ‘has a little bit of lilac borrowed from the ticking’. And spread on the old French dining table, used by Cath as a desk, is an antique African Ewe cloth that echoes the colours of the antique Delft tiles on the chimneypiece. Everywhere there is a balance between rigour and whimsy, done and undone, old and new.

Having been a collector since she was 18, Cath uses art as the linchpin of many of the rooms. The hallways are crammed with paintings, a Mary Fedden or a Grayson Perry rubbing shoulders with things she has picked up from markets and junk shops. An Ellsworth Kelly print found at auction was the big buy for the kitchen. Downstairs, in the sitting room, there is a large floral piece by Jasper Conran’s husband, the artist Oisín Byrne. Up in the bedroom is a series by Spanish artist Ramiro Fernández Saus depicting Adam and Eve’s fall from the garden of Eden.

Bed hangings in Lisa Fine Textiles’ floral ‘Samode’ linen in poppy and a William Potts linen, with a Heritage Trimmings tassel fringe, set off the bespoke Colin Orchard four-poster. On the antique Swedish rug is a bench covered in George Spencer Designs’ ‘Mosaic’ in raspberry.

Paul Massey

‘For me, buying pictures is like investing in stocks and shares. Emotional stocks and shares, rather than financial ones,’ says Cath. ‘I wanted the house to have timeless bones. Then I can change the cushions and pictures as the years go by, and the house can evolve. I wanted it to feel elegant but unexpected’.

Joy of Print: joyofprint.co.uk | C.Atherley: c-atherley.com