Beverly Hill

The family needed a lot of storage and a real sense of space, the two things that usually pull against each other. They first leaned classical English, but all those florals and lines grew busy fast, so together we simplified: comfort first, clean lines, and lighting doing the quiet work. The interior settled into earth tones and pale colours, with cabinet doors picked out in concave-and-convex stripes and fine picture-frame moulding, and a little metal to lift the whole flat.

Two moves nod to the years they spent overseas. We worked a fireplace element in under the television, more for warmth in the cooler months than for show, and once we learned how much the family loves blue, we threaded different depths of it through the eldest son's room, the master bedroom, the bathroom and the kitchen. The living room, deliberately, stays out of it. We kept it streamlined and neutral so that as life fills the room over the years, the look never gets noisy.

Gentle arcs and arched outlines recur from room to room, softening corners in a family home and tying the spaces together. Nearly all the joinery here was custom-made by our trusted partner factory, which is what let the storage disappear into the walls while the flat still feels open. It is a calm, timeless home built to grow with five people.