Emma Burns' London flat is a masterclass in sophisticated small space style
Suitability, suitability, suitability," says Emma Burns, encapsulating her design philosophy. "Everything has to be appropriate to its surroundings and its architecture. You have to respond to the building, the brief, the client, the person who lives there. I approach every project in the same way." Her own London flat, a pied-à-terre where she spends her weekdays, embodies the smartness and efficiency of city life.
Emma bought the flat – on the second floor of an 1840s house in Bayswater – about seven years ago. Not far from Kensington Gardens (a convenient location for Dahlia, Emma's pug), it overlooks the spacious, leafy surrounds of Porchester Square. A graceful building with a beautiful cantilevered staircase and high-ceilinged rooms, it had suffered the usual unfortunate fate of houses chopped up into flats. "When I bought the flat it was like a rabbit warren, a complete mess," says Emma. "The bedroom was facing the square and the sitting room was facing the street, so my first priority was to change that back, to give the sitting room back its two big windows onto the square."
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Having reoriented the flat to her satisfaction, the next step was to make the most effective possible use of the small footprint. "You can't be indulgent in this sort of flat," she notes. "You have to be quite brutal and realistic with what you can achieve." The existing pine, country-style kitchen was swiftly dispatched in favour of sleek flat lacquered cabinets. "From the sitting room, it looks more like a bar than a kitchen," explains Emma. "And the bits where the mess happens are hidden behind the wall, so you don't feel that you're sitting in the kitchen when you're on the sofa."
This no-nonsense approach is evident throughout the flat. "I love having coat pegs in a country entrance hall, it feels so welcoming," she says, "but I hate the mess of that in London." A coat cupboard behind a jib door in the entrance hall solved that problem. Emma also sacrificed a bathtub in the internal bathroom in favour of a large shower with a simple glass screen – "this made the room visually double in size", she observes – and built in as much storage as she could manage to ensure that the space remained calm and uncluttered.
The sitting room is perhaps the most striking demonstration of Emma's clever way with space. Filled with an impressive amount of furniture, art, books and collected objects, it nevertheless looks calm, harmonious and comfortable. A generous L-shaped sofa wraps around the walls, and a bookshelf incorporates a small desk as well as plenty of storage. Another bookshelf was custom-made for the space between the windows, and Emma designed a banquette to go beneath it, so that the glass dining table could be squeezed in as close to the wall as possible. Deep, elegant cornicing and skirting boards, simple curtains and pale grey paint on the walls form an elegant backdrop to Emma's collections. Though there undoubtedly is a discipline to it, the process of arranging these things appears to be effortless. "It’s just about practising, non-stop moving things around and playing house," she says. "I really do believe that if you have a base of things you love, you can make it all work together."
MAY WE SUGGEST: The converted stable block of Sibyl Colefax designer Emma Burns
Smart and efficient as the flat is, the things that fill it give a strong sense of history and personality. "I made the patchwork textile on the headboard of the bed a million years ago, out of old fabric scraps and bits of my mother's dresses," she says, and indeed it features in a previous house of hers shot for House & Garden. Her collection of 20th-century art, shot through with vivid greens, is the centrepiece in the sitting room, while antiques picked up over the years each have their own absorbing character. An 18th-century chinoiserie chest facing the sofa is particularly striking, its deep black lacquer forming a foil to the more contemporary elements of the room, and looking, as Emma says "chic rather than old-fashioned."
With suitability at the heart of her ethos, Emma seems to have created the ideal pied-à-terre for herself and Dahlia the pug. "It’s like a very elegant hotel suite where everything is to hand," she remarks. "It's pleasing to be in alone, and equally so when other people are there. It's quite an elastic flat, and seems to expand and contract to fit whoever is there." She makes it sound like an attribute of the space itself, yet one suspects it was all part of the plan.
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Simon Brown1/13The sitting room is painted in Papers & Paints' HC 9-094, a gentle background for Emma's extensive art collection.
Simon Brown2/13The side chair – found in Sibyl Colefax & John Fowler's antiques department, has a seat in a discontinued fabric by Neisha Crosland.
Simon Brown3/13The shelving, designed by Emma and built by Christopher Bell, incorporates a small desk that pulls out.
Simon Brown4/13The sofa is upholstered in a cotton velvet by Jane Churchill, with cushions in a mohair velvet by Bruno Triplet.
Simon Brown5/13Emma designed the shelving to fit the space between the windows, as well as the banquette. The dining table is Norman Foster's 'Nomos' design, surrounded by a mix of vintage chairs.
Simon Brown6/13The curtains are in Claremont Furnishings' 'Toile Chevron', contrast lined in Ian Mankin's 'Ticking 01' (cream).
Simon Brown7/13
Simon Brown8/13Emma designed the kitchen herself, with walls and countertops in Moleanos Blue honed limestone.
Simon Brown9/13The entrance hall is painted in Papers & Paints' 'Du Cane', for a dramatic effect, while the woodwork is crisply picked out in Farrow & Ball's 'All White'. The pot cupboard was a gift from Roger Banks-Pye, with a Belgian Fossil stone top added by Emma.
Simon Brown10/13Emma bought the 19th-century carved wood stag's head over the bed in the Dordogne in France. The curtains were made from a textile found at Susan Deliss' shop, and hang unlined over a chik blind.
Simon Brown11/13An antique linen press found at a sale in Cornwall serves as a wardrobe. A vintage chair is covered in a damask by Antico Setificcio in Florence.
Simon Brown12/13Expanses of intricate Calacatta Vagli marble lend depth and luxury to the bathroom. "It distracts me from the fact that there isn't a window," says Emma. The basin is from The Water Monopoly.
Simon Brown13/13Emma and Dahlia in the sitting room.
