The interior designer’s budget renovation

The interior designer’s budget renovation 07/07/2024, 10:07
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The interior designer’s

budget renovation
Josie Lywood talks us through every step of her
Georgian townhouse upgrade, which added
significant value to the property
Josie Lywood in her new kitchen

RYAN WICKS
Victoria Brzezinski Friday May 17 2024, 12.01am, The Sunday Times
Share Save
ith their eminently satisfying symmetry,
W stucco and sash windows there’s a reason

the airy elegance of Georgian properties
W
The interior designer’s budget renovation
has long been coveted. Despite their architectural

07/07/2024, 10:07
beauty, improving these homes, built between about 1715

and 1830, can be a pricey prospect — canny planning is
essential.
The interior designer Josie Lywood was living in a flat in

Richmond, southwest London, when a Georgian fixer-
upper on a handsome square in a conservation area
came up for sale for £1.2 million. The townhouse, just the
other side of the Thames from Kew Gardens, had
carpeted bathrooms, one radiator and was in Brentford.
It was not an area that she and her husband, Julian, had
considered relocating to. “A lot of Brentford is modern
but there are little pockets of really old properties. I
believe this was an old archery practice area for Henry
VIII,” Lywood, 33, says of the townhouse’s location.
Looking through to the living room

RYAN WICKS
When the couple arrived for a viewing in late 2019 they

were greeted by tired magnolia walls, but in a house with
sound bones. “I don’t think the previous owner had
touched the property since she moved in, in the 1970s,”
Lywood says. Lywood and her husband saw the
potential, but it hasn’t been smooth sailing. They bought
the house soon after the viewing, but it would be August
2020 before they could move in, because of pandemic-
related restrictions. Renovation planning took about a
year, and building work began in January 2023 and was
completed in May.
“When we got into the property we didn’t have any

budget to renovate,” Lywood recalls. “Once we had saved
up, one very challenging part of the build was that I was
in the first trimester of my pregnancy and nauseous
when the builders were at the house.” She gave birth to a
daughter, Artemis, in October 2023.
The townhouse was built on a site that Henry VIII used for archery practice,
Lywood says
RYAN WICKS
Lywood has not shied away from using colour in her

home, but then she should know what she’s doing — she
is creative director of the Richmond-based interiors firm
Q Design House. “As a studio we don’t really have a set
style,” she says. “I’ve done a lot of houses that have a
more neutral design. When we first moved in I did paint
several of the rooms in neutral colours but the rooms felt
really bland; this sort of house can take colour.”
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The interiors choices were sympathetic to the property’s

heritage, but cost constraints mean the couple have had
to carefully consider where to save and where to splurge.
The layout, over four floors, was not particularly
practical for the family they hoped to have. “When we
moved in we had bedrooms in the basement and on the
top floor, and the living spaces were on the two middle
floors. The kitchen was not really usable. We got by by
replacing some of the appliances, knowing that we’ll do
the kitchen properly later on,” she says.
The updated bathroom feels bright and modern

RYAN WICKS
Navigating the house’s grade II listing and its awkward

intricacies, nooks and crannies was another challenge.
Before they landed on the final design the couple had
hoped to add an extension to the rear of the house,
which involved knocking down an attached outhouse.
“The planning application was rejected,” Lywood says.
“However, it was not a complete waste — for the
secondary application [which was accepted] I was able to
use a lot of the documents, surveys and drawings made
for the previous one and adjust them.
“The outhouse is not original, but it’s listed, so they

wouldn’t let us remove that, our heritage expert told us.
We had to scrap that plan. At the end of the day you
don’t buy a Georgian property to rip it all apart. I started

playing around with the layout and to work out the best
use of the basement space.”
The second iteration of Lywood’s layout involved

moving the kitchen into the basement, including
opening up the wall and a few structural changes. The
heritage expert was positive, especially given that this is
where the original kitchen would have been located. “I
still had to get permission — just listed building consent
rather than a full planning application,” she says.
The ground floor redesign
The ground floor’s new layout houses two reception

rooms: a main sitting area and a separate snug. Lywood
had fantasised about dividing the spaces with Crittall
doors, but these would have cost a minimum of £5,000,
so she plumped for more aeordable timber-framed
glazed doors from LPD Doors (lpddoors.co.uk). Another
purse-friendly trick was to buy the six cast-iron-style
radiators unpainted. “It took ages to paint them myself,
but it did save about £100 a radiator.”
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The larger lounge is north-facing and doesn’t get much

light. “I embraced the fact that it was dark and cosy and
went for a blueish deep grey, Down Pipe from Farrow &
Ball,” Lywood says. A memento of locations important to
the couple hangs on the wall here. Lywood had it made
as a birthday present for Julian. It features spots such as
Durham (the couple met there at university in 2011),
Miami (where Julian proposed on the beach) and Bandol
on the Côte d’Azur, where they wed in 2017. Brentford is
now on there too.
The living room before and after the renovation. The grandfather clock is
thought to be about 300 years old
A few of the artworks in the house are by Lywood’s

great-great-grandfather William McTaggart — a Scottish
painter in the 19th century — including a sketch from the
1870s over a sofa and a grandfather clock. “I think the
clock is a similar age to the property, dating from about
1717,” Lywood says.
The hand-me-down antique armchairs have been re-

covered at a cost of £1,000 each (including fabric and
upholstery). “I used Vanderhurd Paravento 1008-1 fabric
[£174 a metre] for the backs only to help save cost, and
the more aeordable Andes Ecru from Warwick inside
[£32 a metre]. Similar to the armchairs, in my bedroom I
used an expensive fabric for the central striped panel on

the headboard and then a cheaper fabric for the rest. It’s
an example of how you can order a smaller quantity of a
high-end fabric to help to reduce costs without
sacrificing on finish,” she says.
The pale green, south-facing snug looks out over the

garden. “I managed to source ceiling flush lights that
covered existing holes, which saved us having to
replaster the existing ceiling,” she says. The Plumb lights
cost £64 each from Pooky (pooky.com), and the Pebble
wool rug is from Dunelm (about £99, dunelm.com).
Lywood was concerned about the new basement

kitchen/diner being dingy. “When it was two separate
rooms they were both quite dark, but once we opened
them up it felt a lot brighter than expected,” she says. “I
was conscious to try and keep it as light as I could, which
is part of the reason why I picked yellow [Farrow & Ball
Citron] for the cabinets, because I didn’t want it to feel
like a basement. The walls are painted in Farrow & Ball’s
Wimborne White, which has a very pale pink undertone,
and the skirting and windows are painted a slightly
darker colour [Farrow & Ball’s Slipper Satin], making the
walls feel as bright as possible.”
Lywood moved the kitchen from the ground Roor to the basement without it
feeling dingy
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After designing every cabinet to make best use of the
“tricky and very tight” spaces, she employed a joiner to

build the kitchen. “It worked out really well doing it
bespoke because none of the walls are straight. We also
had it painted on site, which helps with the finishing.”
In one of the 90cm-deep alcoves on either side of the

chimney breast Lywood has fitted a deep pantry
cupboard; in the other sits an integrated Fisher & Paykel
American double fridge-freezer with “life-changing”
drawers (from £3,030, fisherpaykel.com). “We had a very
restricted size, but I managed to find one that fit
perfectly. It’s one of my splurges,” she admits. Lywood
fell in love with some hand-painted bee-pattern tiles (a
nod to Brentford Football Club, nicknamed the Bees),
which she fitted around her Smeg range. “The bee tiles
were £25 each (decorumtiles.co.uk), so I only used four,
around the cooker. The rest were plain and cost £1.90
each from Fired Earth; the tiles cost £300 in total,” she
says.
The dining table is a £1,150 custom-made design bought

from Etsy from the Manchester firm
CraftyCreationsMCR (etsy.com), but the Rise & Fall
School pendant ceiling light from the British brand
Original BTC above it was a splurge (£339,
hollowaysofludlow.com). “It was key because I wanted a
pendant that we could move up and down,” she says.
“The banquette seating was made by the joiner from
MDF around the radiator [£2,500], and our upholsterer
made a cushion [£700].”
Calacatta and Bluestone tumbled marble tiles lend the kitchen Roor a
classical look
RYAN WICKS
The kitchen’s monochrome floor adds a period feel.

Lywood used Calacatta and Bluestone tumbled marble
tiles, from Mandarin Stone (mandarinstone.com) — a
fitting choice, given that the basement would probably
have had a flagstone floor. “Another trick: if I want
something to feel really bright, I’ll add in some dark,
contrasting accents. For example, where we’ve got the
darker tiles on the floor, the darker colour helps to make
the lighter one look brighter and more lifted,” Lywood
says.
Instead of fitting a traditional island Lywood plumped

for a smaller, movable version, which sits oe the floor
for less of a chunky look. The island’s 30mm solid
marble worktop has a slightly chamfered finish, in

keeping with the property’s age. “I opted for the ‘ogee
edge’ on the island only to help save costs,” she says.
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As for the kitchen electrics, she has followed a minimally

invasive route. “We can’t put any downlights in, so it’s all
low-level lighting from Pooky, which I prefer anyway:
wall lights and LED lighting within the joinery,” she
adds. The choice of unlacquered brass finishes for her
hot water kitchen tap and cupboard handles was an
investment at £1,680 (tradingdepot.co.uk), but one that
will age over time for a more authentic look than
polished brass.
The main bathroom beside the kitchen has one tiny

window. Lywood has used a mid blue (Farrow & Ball’s De
Nimes) on the walls and ceiling, and an arched shower
screen that echoes the alcoves in the kitchen. In the
hallway a thick door curtain using Laura Ashley for
Ashley Wilde fabric (£750 for fabric and curtain
construction) minimises drafts from the front door,
while the stair runner is a plain carpet with a linen
border to match the wall colour (Three Farm Green from
Little Greene). “This is often a lot more cost-eeective
than buying a ready-made runner,” she says. “There are
economies of scale when using a carpet and linen tape,

so it is cheaper over lots of flights of stairs (but probably
not as big a saving over a single flight). At my house we
have four flights of stairs. The total runner cost that I
spent was about £2,500, but if I had used a standard
runner it would have cost around £4,500.”
Her daughter’s bedroom is painted in Farrow & Ball’s Babouche yellow
Upstairs Lywood has painted Artemis’s room in a sunny

yellow: Farrow & Ball’s Babouche. The laundry basket
was a reasonable £39 from Urban Outfitters, and the
world map is peel-and-stick wallpaper from Hovia (£39 a
square metre, hovia.com). “I stuck it up myself when I
was 30 weeks pregnant on a ladder,” she recalls.
“When considering your budget for renovating a
property, the interior architecture elements are what can

add more value to your home, especially when the
design and installation has been completed to a good
standard,” Lywood says. The distinction between
interior architecture and FF&E (furniture, fixtures and
equipment), she explains to clients, is that if you were to
pick up a house and turn it upside down the items that
would fall out are considered FF&E; anything that stays
in place and is sold with the property is interior
architecture. “When we had the house revalued [after
the renovation],” Lywood says, “the property price
increased quite significantly. The return on investment
is approximately 150-200 per cent.”
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Comments (45)
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readers to use their real names when commenting, ]nd out more
here.
Rishi Caleyachett y
R Add to the conversation...
Sort by Recommended
J
A beautiful house but your headline suggests this is done
on a budget - it is not.
Reply · Recommend (88) · Share
L
I had to read the headline again. It just says budget.
Turns out it's a high budget not as I hoped a low one.
K
The headline says “”tight budget”! You have to
wonder what planet these people are on. I did note
the new
Jonathan SMEG range cooker in the photo at over
Tagg
£3,000
17 M AY, 2024 a pop.
1 reply
ShowL1Smith
more reply
17 M AY, 2024
M
What normal 30 somethings can aQord to splurge 1.2
million on a house, renovate with marble, bespoke joinery
K Rogers
and extension-and then have the headline as budget
17 M AY, 2024
renovation?
C
F&B paint is hardly budget.
But lovely house, and great job.
K
M Baxendale
17 M AY,Speak
2024to any professional decorator and they’ll say
that they hate F&B paint. They’re very diXcult to
apply, vastly overpriced and can be colour matched
exactly by cheaper brands.
4 replies
D
Chris Frankland
17 M AY, 2024
Agree. Crown Heritage does near matches. Beautiful
finish. £22 tin on sale in Wickes as opposed to c £100
ShowK1 Rogers
more reply
17 M AY, 2024
K
Budget: I don't think this word means what you think it
means.
D Stone
17 M AY, 2024

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The interior designer’s budget renovation 07/07/2024, 10:07

How McDonald’s changed its classics

The interior designer’s

Josie Lywood in her new kitchen

Victoria Brzezinski Friday May 17 2024, 12.01am, The Sunday Times

ith their eminently satisfying symmetry,

W stucco and sash windows there’s a reason

has long been coveted. Despite their architectural

beauty, improving these homes, built between about 1715

The interior designer Josie Lywood was living in a ﬂat in

Looking through to the living room

When the couple arrived for a viewing in late 2019 they

“When we got into the property we didn’t have any

Lywood has not shied away from using colour in her

really bland; this sort of house can take colour.”

The interiors choices were sympathetic to the property’s

The updated bathroom feels bright and modern

Navigating the house’s grade II listing and its awkward

“The outhouse is not original, but it’s listed, so they

don’t buy a Georgian property to rip it all apart. I started

The second iteration of Lywood’s layout involved

The ground floor redesign

The ground ﬂoor’s new layout houses two reception

The larger lounge is north-facing and doesn’t get much

A few of the artworks in the house are by Lywood’s

The hand-me-down antique armchairs have been re-

used an expensive fabric for the central striped panel on

The pale green, south-facing snug looks out over the

Lywood was concerned about the new basement

After designing every cabinet to make best use of the

“tricky and very tight” spaces, she employed a joiner to

In one of the 90cm-deep alcoves on either side of the

The dining table is a £1,150 custom-made design bought

The kitchen’s monochrome ﬂoor adds a period feel.

Instead of ﬁtting a traditional island Lywood plumped

marble worktop has a slightly chamfered ﬁnish, in

As for the kitchen electrics, she has followed a minimally

The main bathroom beside the kitchen has one tiny

economies of scale when using a carpet and linen tape,

Her daughter’s bedroom is painted in Farrow & Ball’s Babouche yellow

Upstairs Lywood has painted Artemis’s room in a sunny

“When considering your budget for renovating a

property, the interior architecture elements are what can

Property newsletter Inside Britain's most exclusive homes,

Life & Style Property & Home

Home interiors Property Property renovations

FIRST PERSON OVERSEAS

Comments are subject to our community standards and

R Add to the conversation...

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