Inside Peter Lynn’s Timeless West London Townhouse Project

Hi Luxury Home Show, my name is Peter Lynn. I'm the architect and co-founder of Mayling & Lynn. This is Lion House in West London. Come on in and I'll give you a tour. And then on this side we've got a really really beautiful bar area. There's beers in here too and I've just spotted a bottle of champagne. So the grass that we've got here in the back corner of the garden is actually from Lord's Cricket Ground. And then coming through really what I think is the best room, probably in the house, is the huge family room. Welcome inside. So this is the entrance hallway to Lion's House and we worked with the clients really closely for probably the best part two years. The build itself took a good 14 months on site. As you'll see we dug a whole basement where there was no basement before as well as other extension work. They've got a family of four kids, so there's six of them in total, two pets, so a really busy household. It was all about social interaction, open plan, but also creating little cozy spots. They host and are good bakers and cooks, so dinner parties and kids parties. So follow me through, I'm going to show you the reception room. So on this project we worked really closely with the interior designer Emma Milne. So a lot of the fabrics, cushions, sofas and rugs were really helpfully sourced by her, as well as a strong lead with the client. The client was super creative and heavily involved. In the group chat we kind of nicknamed this project where Soho House meets Downton Abbey because we've got some really beautiful textures, really warm cozy colours, as well as the sort of traditional features that you'll see throughout the house, including some of the panelling detailing, the new fireplace. We've got really lovely covings reinstated and a lot of the communication on this project was all done through WhatsApp. We kind of kept saying it was the house that WhatsApp built. In this front reception room the key thing really was creating a really nice open plan, big enough seating area for the family of six. The issue that we tend to find in these projects and in these houses particularly is that the front rooms and the hallways tend to be quite dark. So the idea was to introduce some glazing into the wall between the front reception room and the hallway. So as soon as you come in the front door you get this really beautiful feeling of width and the view directly through to the fireplace. So coming on to the fireplace, the original fireplace was a little bit further towards the front window. As part of us sort of increasing the length of this room we demolished the original chimney breast and rebuilt the chimney breast that is here now centred to the room, which allows really beautiful spaces for artwork either side as well as kind of console tables and Christmas tree. And as part of that fireplace we put in a bespoke fender that was all custom made. It's got really beautiful bronze detailing and specifically at Christmas time it's a really cosy place to kind of perch by the fire with a marshmallow or just where you hang your sockings. We kept a really nice wide opening here so we did originally actually have doors on the drawing and as we sort of worked our way through site we thought it was actually nicer to have that as a much more welcoming entrance into the reception room and it also just increases that feeling of width and it also really helps with furnishing the room too. And it doesn't actually feel like you're kind of sat, if you're sat on this sofa for example, it doesn't feel like you're sat right near an opening. It still feels cosy, it still feels tucked in, you're directly opposite the fireplace and it feels a really nice sort of wrap around place to sit. So I'm going to talk you through and show you down here which is where the kitchen is but before we get to the kitchen, the darkest part of the floor plate here obviously is this middle space so it works really well for this to be used for sort of, we've got here boot room storage which is great for coats and shoes and then if you go inside here there's a downstairs loo with bespoke marble vanity that was all custom made in a Carrera which is really lovely and sort of offsets really beautifully with the green and we've got in here. All the paint colours are from paint and paper library. There's a bit of a theme we've got sort of the slate family is the main dominant soft off-white colour that you can see and as we go through there's other accents of colour that work really beautifully. So this is the open plan kitchen living dining room with really beautiful grand central island here and real big statement hob and cooking area. The reverse side of the boot room in the WC is this really beautifully executed pantry. In here there's plenty of food storage, clients got some really beautifully designed labels so everything is really easy to access. So the kitchen was all bespokely designed and executed by Humphrey Munson. We've got really great appliances all Gaggenau, all top range, sort of large double sink. We've got cook a tap so there's boiling, filtered, sparkling water, all of it accessible. A really nice sort of hidden coffee breakfast station and there's even a sort of low level fridge here which is super handy for kind of milks and stuff when you're making coffees and teas. And then on this side we've got a really really beautiful drinks station bar area with a nice pull-out fridge area for mixers. There's beers in here too and I've just spotted a bottle of champagne. So the sort of back end of the property is the living and the dining area which works really well for the access to the rear garden. As part of the construction works in this house we only really retained the front facade and demolished most of the house supporting the sort of terraces either side and extended across to maximize the full width of the property. Previously this just had a small sort of external side area so by encompassing the whole footprint we now have these beautiful roof lights that really help bring some natural light as you can see into the space. And underneath one of the roof lights we perfectly centered the dining table and the pendant line. The pendant line's beautiful from Porta Romana and the banquette seating was all taken care of by Humphrey Munson and their bespoke furnishing department as are the dining chairs, the bath stalls and a few other little accessories in this space. So into the sort of living area we wanted to create something that was super cozy, somewhere where the whole family could be. You can see one member of the family is an avid chess player and then the others can be sat watching tv whilst parents are cooking and they're entertaining friends. So as part of that we wanted to create a sort of focal point of the room. So we've got this really nice remote control gas fire and above that is the Samsung frame tv which works really well to hide it as some artwork when it's not in use. A big part of the extension and the client's brief was to keep everything traditional but with a slight contemporary nod. So we've got some really nice fenestration still on the rear doors and the side windows. A lot of houses do the full sort of rear elevation glazed sliding doors fully maximizing the opening but we actually quite liked the idea that these doors are on a 180 hinge so the doors can fold back against the fixed panels and then you can still really nicely transition from interior to exterior to the rear garden. We're greeted by Lix the family dog she's super friendly and will no doubt be following us around this tour. So in the rear garden here the brief was having a social space somewhere where the clients could cook and host as well as somewhere for the kids to kick a football around as well as have family dinners outside which you can see in the sort of corner here we've got the dining table with the seat the bunket seat on the brick work wall is actually it's got a lift up lid so it's perfect for storing cushions and outside furniture bits that don't need to be out all year round. So the grass that we've got here in the back corner of the garden is actually from Lord's Cricket Ground. The client is a member and they were replacing the turf at Lord's and you could purchase rolls of it so earlier on in summer the cricket grass has been laid here at the lion house. So follow me and I'll take you down to the basement. So one of the largest elements of this build was excavating this entirely new basement before there was just an original cellar that was basically cold damp and used for storage. So we dug this circa three and a half meters deep to achieve the really amazing ceiling heights. I think here we've got about 3.1 from floor to ceiling which just makes it feel so much bigger and grander and doesn't feel like you're in the basement. So coming into a guest bedroom which is actually the sixth bedroom in the house and it has really great natural light and access to the front light well. So works really nicely for visiting parents, grandparents or we've quite often had projects where a sort of live-in nanny or a live-in carer has this room because they can let themselves in and out and they've got their own bathroom. So in the ensuite bathroom we've got a really nice custom-made porter vanity unit which has its own bespoke colour, a really nice marble top and we've got the sort of nice brass accents of all the hardware, flush plates, toilet roll holder, shower mixers etc. So leading back into the main sort of hallway area we wanted to create a bit of a focal point as you came down the stairs otherwise it would start feeling a little bit tunnel-y down here. So the idea was to create a really nice showcase cabinet for wine, there's I think there's a few spirits and champagne bottles too in here which works really beautifully. It's not temperature controlled, it's solely for display purposes but I think it really elevates the space as you come down the stairs. In here we've got a utility room that's currently in use at the moment and what we have done underneath the staircase is maximise all the integrated storage otherwise this is quite often dead space and with four children, lots of sport, there's loads of kit which is good to hide away. Okay so coming into the Palate's gym little studio, in here we wanted to create something that was really calm, really relaxing as well as being somewhere that you can practically work out. So we've utilised the wall area here perfectly for the Palate's bed where you've got a mirror at the end and a mirror on the side also just to maximise the feeling of space in this room. Obviously being a windowless room we kind of want to bounce the light as much as we possibly can. The LEDs coming from the cornicing are completely dimmable so you can really change the ambient feeling in the space depending on what you're using it for. So coming back out we've got a guest loo down here and then coming through really what I think is the best room probably in the house is the huge family room somewhere to hang out for the kids to have sleepovers and they've actually done it before where they've had a semi-circle of teepees I think probably seven or eight where they have a sleepover, they watch films, it's out the way of the rest of the family and they've got access to the red garden. It's a really really great spot. Sofa was custom made given the room is so big we needed something to fill it and give it a solid sort of anchoring so this is from Lawford's. We've got in this corner over here the family are really into games so they've got lots of nice board games and this was a sort of games table and the bunket itself was custom made in a rose uniaki fabric. Mirrors from Porta Romana and all of the sort of low-level panelling and all the woodwork in here is and the joinery unit itself is all painted in denims which is a really nice farrow and ball colour and paired really beautifully with a slate to finish on the walls and the ceiling. Leading into this office space this is all excavated we're actually under the rear garden now and you'll see the flooring which is verbier by Humphrey Munson runs all the way through the house. We've got really nice wide boards that really help sort of take you through all of the different rooms. This was a key thing in the brief was somewhere where she could work from home and we think this really creates a nice little cosy also functional spot to work and to the right hand side here there's a great little powder room that works really well for sort of prepping between meetings and digital team calls for example. So again there's a really lovely porter vanity unit some brass accessories in there and to create symmetry which is a really key thing for us in the scheme is on the left hand side here we've got additional storage which is super useful for Christmas decorations, overflow suitcases, toys etc. So if you follow me we'll continue through the rest of the basement and go upstairs. So I'll take you upstairs now but before I do the handrail and the staircase was all built from scratch obviously as part of the rest of the build. The handrail itself is continuous from the basement all the way to the second floor and all of the turns that you see here all came as a solid block and are hand carved by just one man the whole way through the project. It took him I think about a month to do all of the the turns but they're then varnished stained and look beautiful. So coming up the stairs we've got a baby nursery room in here on the right and just down the hallway here we've got the daughter's bathroom which has a really nice built-in tub and the daughter's bedroom at the back here which is really beautiful and as you can see we vaulted the ceiling and it was actually the client's idea to create a false pitch. Typically we kind of follow the slope of the roof but we thought it'd be really nice here to create a bit of symmetry in the room framing the rear window and it pays itself lovely to have a really beautiful pendant. As you can see on this side here we've got a really beautiful little built-in bed which actually works really well when their daughter has sleepovers with friends. It's a trundle bed so underneath here you have a spare mattress that you can pull out which is really great and completely hidden away and then we've got this really fun little reading tower where she can sit at the top there read little books and some of the books and toys are all stored underneath too. Okay so coming down to the front of the property is the principal suite which is really nice and private so coming into essentially the formal dressing room and we think it's actually really important for a principal suite to have a bit of a threshold between the communal space and the private bedroom so it's always quite nice to come into the dressing space just as a bit of a break before entering into the main room. You can see it's really nice and light it's a really calm palette we've got in here really nice neutral colors along with a really beautiful timber flooring just creates a really relaxing space. We've got extended built-in joinery on this right hand side here as well just to add to the dressing room and just create a bit more of a focal point at the sort of foot of the bed and actually concealed behind the area of the tv is the flue from the ground floor fireplace as we relocated it in the space below. Okay so coming back out through this breakout space in the dressing room through double pocket doors that hide away into the wall so you have no awkward door swings is the lavish principal ensuite. Separate tub, really lovely water monopoly, sanitary ware, separate shower and of course it wouldn't be a principal ensuite without a double vanity unit and this double vanity was bespokely made by Humphrey Munson. They were the ones that designed the kitchen and have supplied the wood floor so it's been really nice working with a consultant all the way through the project. Okay so going up to the top floor now there's two extra bedrooms, a bathroom and a playroom. Okay so coming up here at the back this was part of the new extension so this is a sort of pod we call it which is a second floor extension on top of the first floor addition. It's worked really well as a kid's playroom essentially. We've got a really nice built-in joinery unit for tv playing video games and somewhere for the children to hang out out of the way. So back to the stairwell so coming up to the two bedrooms and bathroom one of the key things that we like to try and do is integrate as much natural light as possible and typically this would have been quite a dark stairwell so by introducing this really vast flat roof light as you can see it's sort of tempest two in winter and the natural light in here is is great and in summertime the light really pulls through the floor plates to the ground floor. So we've got bedroom one here, bedroom two here on this floor as you can tell by all the cuddly toys and then these two children share a bathroom. So a really nice design detail up here was actually integrating some storage just behind the shower in the bathroom. So we've literally got in here pull-out storage for linens, towels, bedding and also integrated laundry bins for the two bedrooms up here which works really well. It's really nice and contained, really seamless and outside. Thanks for stopping by Luxury Homeshare. You'll have to come and see one of our other projects soon. If you want any further information on us please see the description box below. Thanks so much, see you soon! Hi Luxury Homeshare, I'm Gigi and I'm Abba, an interior designer from Sigma London. Welcome to my home in Chelsea. At that time a single woman trying to do a project on your own.