THE HOUSE NEEDED TO BE THE PERFECT MIX OF BEING RESTRAINED & SMART WHILE ALSO BEING INTERESTING

With its striking palette and elegant furniture, this Chelsea home, designed by Studio Duggan, represents something of a coming of age

- WORDS VIVIENNE AYERS PHOTOGRAPHY DEAN HEARNE

A melting pot of old and new, smart and refined, but also warm and cocooning,' is Tiffany Duggan of Studio Duggan’s summary of the ‘grownup’ interior of this recently completed six-bedroom family home in Chelsea. Studio Duggan worked on the clients’ country home concurrently, but, not surprisingly, the two interiors differed. ‘The other home has a more country look with antiques and hand-painted furniture, whereas this one is slicker and features lovely velvets, shapely mirrors and plush carpets,’ notes Tiffany.

With a background in theatre design, Tiffany carefully crafts considered schemes that lend themselves to moments of drama, including bold use of colour. ‘We really love colour as a studio, so I think it would be unusual for a client to come to us and say they wanted everything painted white,’ says Tiffany. ‘The clients here wanted to use more colour than they had done previously, but they also didn’t want too much. It needed to be the perfect mix of being relatively restrained and smart while also being interesting.’ A design analysis session with the clients identified that they were drawn towards ‘bold and clean hues rather than dirty and sludgy’.