A Georgian house in Islington full of clever colour combinations

Aiming for something ‘romantic and camp, without going too Liberace’ the artist Christabel MacGreevy has conjured up an old fashioned English scheme with contemporary bite for her friend the photographer Harry Carr
Image may contain Window Art Painting Plant Chair Furniture Couch Desk Table French Window and Bay Window
Mark Roper

Dainty mouldings added to the walls by Christabel frame a work by the fashion photographer Tim Walker. The motif is echoed in the upholstery of the pink sofa, a Facebook Marketplace find. The sofa fabric is from Romo and the coral-red piping from Samuel & Sons in a colour drawn from the picture above.

Mark Roper

The project unfolded at a whirlwind pace through 2023. ‘What I loved about working with Harry,’ Christabel reflects. ‘Was how I could suggest a pink chitz sofa with a blue wall, and it would be an instant yes. He dares to be different, with that rare English flamboyance. It's why we're friends.’ This spirit is particularly in evidence in the first floor sitting room, painted a duck egg blue from Papers & Paints with ruffled chartreuse blinds in glossy a moiré jacquard taffeta from Turnell and Gigon. Dainty mouldings were applied to the walls to frame a work by the fashion photographer Tim Walker and a vintage Suzani. A similar motif was echoed on the bespoke upholstery of the sofa, an Facebook Marketplace find, reupholstered in a pink fabric from Romo with coral-red piping.

Where budget was tight she leant on affordable solutions. Much of the furniture was sourced secondhand from antiques markets, The Saleroom and eBay. ‘Because Harry and I are friends, it was a collaborative effort to hunt down the right objects, which was fun.’ To keep costs down floorboards were painted, white in the sitting room, and black in the hall. ‘I love a painted floorboard,’ she adds, ‘it gives spaces a new dimension while saving costs and keeping original floors intact, which I think are rather pretty, even with their billowing cracks.’

A view from the hallway into the sitting room, where colour takes centre stage. Christabel's love for painted floorboards is evident. The hallway colour is from Paper & Paints.

Mark Roper

Upstairs the biggest spatial transformation was in Harry’s bedroom, which was reorganised to accommodate a tiny, ingenious wet room, carved from the void of the adjacent staircase and accessed by a ladder to the right of the bed. ‘Because the bedroom is already a bold colour, we made the little en-suite a really clean, bright marble chamber,’ says Harry. On the walls of the bedroom Christabel convinced him to exhibit his ‘Beach’ series of photography - portraits taken during his travels to queer nudist beaches from Fire Island to Sitges. ‘What's the point of making stuff if you can't enjoy it in your home now and again?’

In both the downstairs loo and main bathroom Christabel used classic Sibyl Colefax & John Fowler wallpaper designs - the smaller scale ‘Wendle Forest’ in aqua downstairs, and larger scale ‘Squiggle’ in lemon yellow upstairs - balancing the old fashioned feeling of the design with glossy tongue-and-groove panelling and flashes of red. The antique Chanel cabinet on the wall of the main bathroom is ‘Harry in a nutshell,’ Christabel laughs. ‘A bit old school and prim but also glam. I wanted the scheme to have moments of texture and drama. Nothing matches, but it works.’

Tristanhoaregallery.co.uk/christabel-macgreevy