Table of Content
- Kit Kemp's gorgeous London townhouse is a celebration of color and pattern
- Stylist helps couple create new home merging two aesthetics
- Our Guide to All the Current Kitchen Design Trends
- Secret Santa ideas under $30: our picks for interiors addicts
- The Latest Trends in London Street Food
- Set the Stage for Glamorous Holiday Entertaining
- More from Designers
Designers Kit Kemp and Annie Selke have joined forces to launch a new travel-inspired homewares collection. We’re mostly about the home but Jen also likes to share other things she thinks you’ll love, like food and travel. In this exclusive series of short films, Firmdale Hotels Creative Director, Kit Kemp, takes you on a journey through some of her most treasured spaces at The Soho Hotel.
With boutique hotel service and 5 star facilities, Kit Kemp's tasteful inside suits beautifully with the total peak home windows, velvet chairs and granite bathrooms. Jen Bishop is our owner and publisher and an experienced journalist and editor. We also collected bowling shoes – so, peculiar things, which we then make into an art piece.
Kit Kemp's gorgeous London townhouse is a celebration of color and pattern
Discover a series of posts about our 'Dos & Don'ts' to design any space and make it your own, from using strong colours to creating a timeless space. I am fascinated by early embroideries and fragments of early needlework. There is a certain shade of peacock blue that I find in 17th- and 18th-century tapestries and embroideries that has altered over the years but is still quite beautiful.
A sofa and the window recesses are covered in a painterly floral by the Japanese fashion designer Akira Minagawa. "I love fabric and texture and fabulous pieces of art, not necessarily expensive," says Kit, who has made this combination the hallmark of all her interiors. Interiors have always been Vivienne's passion – from bold and bright to Scandi white. After studying at Leeds University, she worked at the Financial Times, before moving to Radio Times. She did an interior design course and then worked for Homes & Gardens, Country Living and House Beautiful. She worked on Country Homes & Interiors for 15 years, before returning to Homes & Gardens as houses editor four years ago.
Stylist helps couple create new home merging two aesthetics
For cost savings, you can change your plan at any time online in the “Settings & Account” section. If you’d like to retain your premium access and save 20%, you can opt to pay annually at the end of the trial. Ingrid Abramovitch, the Executive Editor at ELLE Decor, writes about design, architecture, renovation, and lifestyle, and is the author of several books on design including Restoring a House in the City.
About 10 years ago, they completely refurbished it, adding the orangery – or dining room – as well as an extra bedroom, new entrance hall and stairway. Clearly, pieces have been collected from all over the world – in a bedroom, for instance, a traditional hunting scene hangs above ornate Indian side tables. In Kit’s capable hands, elements that, in other settings, might not sit together comfortably make perfect sense. Some evenings, when it's just the two of them, the Kemps will take their meals on the faux-shagreen cocktail table in their living room, a newly created space open to the kitchen. Here, an artwork by the English textile artist Anna Raymond hangs above the mantel, flanked by a pair of antique Venetian mirrors.
Our Guide to All the Current Kitchen Design Trends
There’s always something that gives it character, whether it’s one of my fabrics, a chandelier or a headboard,” says the hotel maven. In London‘s Covent Garden Hotel , one of Kit’s signature gabled headboards is upholstered in Jim Thompson’s Heliconia Dreamin’ fabric. “I love a sharp green, as well as chrome yellow contrasted by white or a red earth colour,” says Kit. Kemp commissioned artist Alex Hollweg to create a mural that embraced its past life as an old car park. “I loved the idea of a Rousseau-esque painting but with an old car wreck to reference the building’s history, it’s great! ” Hollweg is just one of many talented makers and artists that Kemp commissions to add charm to her designs.
Kemp reimagined this hallway with lot 136, a circa-1750 George III mahogany side table with a later green marble top. Tucked comfortably absent in Sumner Place, this stylish boutique hotel blends into the neighbourhood. Well situated, superbly intended in English place fashion and providing great concierge, valet and room service, Range sixteen would make the perfect weekend bolt-gap. We always spend summers at home near the coast in Hampshire and Christmas on Barbados. We’ve got lazy about going anywhere new – at least we know that when we go to Barbados everything is organised, so we can just plonk! I’d love to go to India again – I want to look at some designs and furniture – and I should go to the Far East as well.
It was such fun to imagine where I would use my favorite pieces and in which kind of setting they would look best. The versatility of a fine piece of furniture, ceramics, or silver is one reason why they have been valued and treasured for several centuries. “We are known for adding character and style to interiors to make rooms look magical and sing. We have named the collections after our favourite destinations London, New York, and the Caribbean.
“I love that moment where they are shown for the first time, the embroidery, the decoration and the embellishment,” she says. “I’d recommend layering textures to make rooms come alive, while embroidery is a wonderful art form that makes a room feel handcrafted and can provide a focus point in a room,” she adds. The reconfigured house revolves around this new barrel-shape kitchen, with limed-wood cupboards, bleached-white floors, and a bottle-green '50s Aga stove—"the only thing I can cook on," Kit says. While she prepares dinner, her husband joins her in the kitchen, relaxing in a wing chair upholstered in a patchwork of tea towels. An adjoining sunroom has a long refectory table and a view of the lush garden outside. This casual eating space is the closest thing in the house to a dining room, a formality the couple decided to forgo.
Kit Kemp has cited the life and work of The Bloomsbury Group as an inspiration for many years. They truly loved colour and Vanessa Bell in particular had a very distinctive palette. It is these ‘Bloomsbury Group’ colours that the London collection is inspired by. From the spicy neutral tones of ‘Horseshoe Hand Knotted Jute’ and sunshine yellow of ‘Patchwork Tufted Wool’ to ‘Hotline’ which does all the talking, they work so well with the English depth of light as it changes throughout the seasons.
Amy Cutmore is Editor-in-Chief, Audience, across Future's Homes portfolio. A homes and interiors journalist of 20 years standing, she has spent much of that time writing about technology, appliances and kitchens. While other people count how many countries they've visited, Amy tots up how many countries' washing machine factories she's toured (it's eight by the way, from South Korea to Slovenia). She can't leave the house without a decent pair of noise-cancelling headphones, and is always ready to explain an acronym – be it QLED, DAB or HDMI. Kit is co-founder and creative director of Kit Kemp Design Studio and Firmdale Hotels, which includes London’s Ham Yard Hotel, Charlotte Street Hotel, The Soho Hotel, Covent Garden Hotel, and The Crosby Street and Whitby Hotels in NYC. A lover of British art, craft and sculpture, she uses these elements to make her hotels feel unique and personal — the antithesis of anonymous, bland decorating.
It’s infused with contemporary art but, equally, presents more mundane objects in a new light. Her interiors are calm and comfortable, yet exciting at the same time. She has an ability to create environments that, while highly distinctive, are always sensitive to their surroundings. “This gives a hint of structure, apart from which guests are completely free to do whatever they want—swim, roam the property, enjoy the beach, go to the vegetable and fruit market,” she says.
There is a rustic look to the carvings on aprons of card tables and blanket chests, often with mythical creatures and scalloped-shell motifs that I find interesting. An interior designed by Kemp features her Mythical Land wallpaper, created in collaboration with Andrew Martin. I included a section in the book on projects such as painting frames and making shell mirrors and appliqué cushions, all things that we’ve made in our design studio. They’re not perfect by any means, but they’re actually better because of it,” says Kit. Here an inspiration board comes to life around a fireplace, with designer reference materials stored in the hearth. The master bedroom has an embroidered canopy based on an 18th-century textile, a small desk where Kit writes letters by hand, and a jewel box of a dressing room hung with funny hats.
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