All Things Bright

Gorgeous colours, pretty patterns and an eclectic sourcebook of makers contribute to the charm of interior designer Kate Guinness’ family home.

- Juliet Benning

Talking to the interior designer Kate Guinness, it’s immediately obvious that her home has had two very different identities – the one before marriage and children and the one after. Living with ‘a rotation of flatmates’ for four years, Kate fleetingly hints at the wild parties of bright young things. ‘I started searching for my own property in 2012. I was actually looking for a flat rather than a family home.

But when I was shown this house I completely fell in love,’ she says of the now five-bedroom Edwardian house in west London. But in 2016, the household of young professionals changed when Kate’s now husband, Julian, moved in. ‘I’d already done work to the bathrooms, but we began renovating more of it. In the same year, we got married and I started my business. It was a complete whirlwind.’ The project kicked off with the basement, which Kate recalls as rather grim. ‘It was disgusting and damp, down a dangerous set of stairs. Now it’s a lovely, clean laundry room,’ she says triumphantly.