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When renovating their London home, a creative couple sacrificed their guest room for a soak.
When Charlotte and Angus Buchanan, 36, bought their Edwardian semi-detached townhouse in Harlesden, north-west London, in early 2020, they started sketching their dream bathroom.This will be the first time the couple will have enough space to create a sanctuary dedicated to their love of long baths (a passion they want to instill in their children, Riva, 5, and Wylder, 3) .Thus, rather than being an architectural afterthought as these industrious spaces are so often, the two bathrooms express the family’s vision for life in their new home – and Buchanan Studio’s distinctively British, often fantastical aesthetic, The couple founded Creative Direction and Interior Design in 2018.
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Angus, who is the studio’s creative director, is known for achieving vibrant colourful, unique home and restaurant interiors – a cozy, jewel-toned townhouse in Chelsea; purple for Middle Eastern restaurant chain Le Bab in east London Red Stainless Steel Wrapped Dining Room – He and company CEO Charlotte brought the same dramatic style to the renovation of their own three-story property, and especially the master bathroom, a serene but quirky 186-square-meter on the second floor The ft lounge is accessed through the couple’s bay window bedroom.
“The first question was, ‘How do we make this a really comfortable space?’” Angus said.Part of the answer lies in sacrificing the adjoining guest room to increase the bathroom’s footprint and widen the entryway to the couple’s own room (now with a pair of reclaimed Victorian pine double doors).Today, with its soft white walls, moulded fireplace and original pine floors, the space is like a charming early 1900s English living room, if not for its turn-of-the-century roll-top cast iron tub, from the Nostalgia & New Salvage Yards in North London , at its centre, overlooking the home’s garden through a large window frame.
Not much space is new.On the north wall, a recycled Art Deco bow-faced porcelain double basin, which for decades lived in Angus’ parents’ former home, the Edwardian shooting cottage in the Cotswolds, reminds him of his childhood.He and Charlotte updated it for their house, adding a backsplash from their favourite lilac-textured Calacatta Viola marble and installing a deep shelf above it to accommodate British furniture maker Rue Three antique mirrors in the shape of a stadium, custom made by Rupert Bevan.The vanity is flanked by two 8-foot-tall gable-roofed cabins—covered in zellige tiles in alternating shades of grey rose and bone white—that contain the shower and toilet respectively: dramatic in a room usually defined by utilitarianism Hidden Victory alone.They are modeled after boathouses and are inspired by memories of Angus’ childhood summers spent on the Helford River, a secluded Cornish estuary, created by Daphne du Maurier in 1941 Immortalized in the historical novel “The Frenchman’s Creek”.A Victorian toy pond yacht from Norfolk antiques store Kadensek & Ward echoes this maritime romantic note on the mantelpiece, with its mahogany Angus masts fitted with sails made from Buchanan Studio’s new fabric, Ticking Rose , which is a floral-patterned black-and-white striped Belgian linen.”With the fire burning, it feels like you’ve escaped to the English Country House Hotel,” Charlotte said of the room’s appeal.When friends come over, they are often drawn here before dinner to hang out and chat by the fire.
Up half the stairs, the children’s bathroom evokes a completely different mood.On the small platform between the second and third floors, a flamingo pink door with a lilac frame – topped by an early 20th century fan with lemon yellow, violet and emerald green panes Window – Formed a vibrant portal to the crazier side of Buchanan’s brain.Paying homage to the avocado-green fixtures in the property’s single original bathroom (a narrow compartment at the back of the first floor), the couple chose a 1960s salmon-pink suite from British supplier Bold Bathrooms for the compact , newly built with 61 square feet of space.After experimenting with various colours and configurations of wall tiles, they settled on a striped arrangement – ​​cream, mustard and blush – somewhere between a tartan pattern and a Battenberg cake pattern.
Since the Buchanans moved in, this small but charming space, like the master bathroom below it, has become an unlikely gathering place.On Friday nights, especially after a long week, families often gather inside for a bath-time party fueled by adult prosecco with a serotonin-inducing color scheme for the kids.”Bathrooms are usually these cold, sanitized spaces,” said Angus, who outfitted both rooms with built-in speakers.”But we wanted to show that they are also places to socialize and have fun.”