Original article featured in Cambridge Agenda Magazine January 2011. Image credits Mark Box

When we were asked to design the living room of this delightful south Cambridgeshire cottage, the family’s love of books proved the answer to using the space in the best possible way. Cate Burren of Angel and Blume takes us behind the scenes of a recent design project.

Use of space

The secret to making a room work is as much in the layout as in the look and feel and nowhere was this more true than when we were asked to work on a living room of a busy family who wanted to make their main living room work hard to keep up with all their requirements.

The room naturally divides into two halves as the entrance hall door and the kitchen door both open off the room creating a walkway through the centre of the room. One half of the room contains a lovely original fireplace and was regularly used for entertaining, relaxing and watching TV, however the other part of the room was rarely used.

Through our discussions about the project, it became apparent that the family were great readers and had many books stored in different parts of the house, and this provided the idea to use the space to house all the books together and create an eye-catching feature in the room.In the other part of the room, a radiator was moved from behind the sofa and relocated in the corner behind a radiator cabinet whi ch serves as a place for photographs and flowers.

Looking Good

The furnishings all needed to be replaced so a light and airy classic scheme was pulled together with a soft cream paint on the walls and woodwork and warm reds and greens in the curtains and cushions. The lighting in the room was poor and although the room has some natural light from the two windows, different types of lighting were desperately needed. The two wall lights were kept and fittings replaced and in addition, two lamp circuits were added and hidden lighting put into the alcoves on either side of the fireplace.

The original carpet that the couple inherited with the house was pulled back to reveal floorboards in good condition and these were sanded and varnished to create an inviting and practical flooring and beautiful traditional Chobi rugs from a local supplier were added for warmth.

Finishing touches

Cushions in mixtures of velvets, woven tweeds and printed linens were used to give a comfortable and informal feel to the room and new floor and table lamps were used around the room to give soft task lighting.

The family already had some really good pictures and also plenty of lovely photographs which were displayed around the room and a collection of beautiful glassware which was displayed on custom made lit glass shelves. We were really delighted with the results of this project and when we return to see the family, it is good to see the room being well used and to see the book collection growing!