“I call this luxury on a Brexit budget,” says Amber Jeavons of her south London flat. The interior designer’s home is where she loves to play around and try out new ideas but, she says, “I can’t just go out and buy a whole new look.” And neither would she want to. “A home needs to feel evolved, not bought off the peg,” she adds.
Instead, Jeavons’s style has come about from adapting and reinventing pieces she already owns. Wooden furniture has been painted or stripped back, a favourite standing lamp is repaired with industrial hose clips and her kitchen is a masterclass in where to spend and where to save. “The result is dark, theatrical splendour – but without breaking the bank,” she says with a flourish.
In a previous life, this one-bedroom flat was “all white – the floors, the walls, everything”. But that was then and this is 2016, when dabbling in paint shades with names such as Down Pipe, Ink and Urbane Grey has become de rigueur. However, Jeavons’s take on dark walls is anything but pedestrian. Yes, her rooms are wrapped in gradations of grey, but the paint shades are ones she mixes herself from pigments. “I add to taste, like a cook seasoning her food, rather than following a strict formula,” she explains. And her other decorative touches – layers of feathers, fur, cloudy gilt and mirror glass – are inexpensive ways to create an air of louche luxury.
Jeavons’s first career was as a dancer, so she knows all about the power of a fabulous backdrop. “I do like a look that will stop people in their tracks,” she says. At work, her moodboards are as likely to include ghostly images of ballet dancers and plant fronds as fabric swatches and flooring samples. “As I come up with ideas, I work rapidly, instinctively, intensely,” she explains.
When it came to reinventing her own flat, Jeavons balanced budget restrictions with her taste for the dramatic. Her 1930s dining table, a hand-me-down from her mother, was originally lacquered black. It got the all-white treatment in Jeavons’s pale phase, but she has now sanded it back to its original wood. “It contrasts with its surroundings and adds richness,” she says. An oriental console table, the wardrobe and woodwork, such as window frames and skirtings, have all been given the dark paint treatment, while floorboards are in a charcoal shade with hints of purple. Jeavons says: “I bucked the trend by doing everything matt rather than eggshell, which I feel has more depth.”
The chimney breast was painted in a Zoffany’s Ink flat emulsion. Wallpapers err towards high-end, but are used sparingly, in alcoves, on a single wall or as a backing for shelving. The intricate patterns of Oreste by Zoffany and Paisley Patani by Thibaut swirl across the walls of the living room and bedroom respectively. In the kitchen, the geometric angles of Cole & Son’s Curio add zing and distract from its skinny galley shape.
The kitchen is where Jeavons splurged on some things and saved on others. The cabinets are high-street buys that she customised with a two-tone paint treatment. “This meant I had more to spend on good-looking appliances and a bamboo worktop. It’s worth putting money into surfaces you use every day – also, bamboo is a sustainable source.”
Jeavons’s accessories include animal skins, but she gets them direct from her local butcher, M Moen & Sons. “I only use ones that are by-products of the meat trade – the Inuit have the right idea,” she says.
Glints of gold come from an old mirror bought for a song from a Devon maker and mellowed, fine-weave wicker baskets, and old finds from the shop Lombok.
“My budget here for this place was a grain of rice compared to what some other designers get to work with,” says Jeavons. “Could I do more if I had more funds? Absolutely.”
AJ Interior Styling is at amber-interiors.com
