HIGHGATE HILL :
LLI DESIGN
Winner in the Interior Design, London category in the UK Property
Awards, in association with Bentley Motors - 2017 / 18
LLI Design recently completed a total redesign and Layout
refurbishment of a 7-storey townhouse in Highgate, a leafy Although the house was c. 3500 sq. ft, with generous room
and desirable part of London. sizes, the house was very vertical comprising of 7 floors, with
each room being effectively on a half-landing; with a central
The owners wanted to create a new environment; they liked core staircase connecting them. Overall the rooms seemed
the idea of having a contemporary house and agreed that disconnected from each other without flow or relationship
the house lent itself to this. However they were concerned between them. The staircase and hallways were poorly lit
that contemporary design could be cold and impersonal. and had a gloomy feel.
The brief was to create a contemporary family home, not The design revolved around redefining the General
in a stark clinical sense, but rather, practical with a feeling Arrangements. Light was brought back into the staircase,
of warmth and soul. The key to the overall success of the by adding extra skylights on the top floor and also adding a
design was to re-think the dynamics of all the spaces and floor-to-ceiling window on the third floor half-landing.
change the existing layouts to provide a design and flow
which responded to their brief. The family had a large It would have been logistically complex to replace
collection of vintage travel posters that they wished to the existing staircase, so instead the existing structure
display prominently around the house, this formed the was stripped back, re-clad in a greyed oak and re-fitted with
starting point for the design and formed a strong graphic a bespoke spindle, banister rail and newel posts, to be in
backdrop to the overall aesthetic. keeping with the new warm contemporary aesthetic.