A tall room in a period townhouse, with a bay window and a cornice worth keeping. The design works with the proportions rather than against them.
The decisions
Rooms like this have height that modern furniture cannot fill. An upholstered headboard wall taken from skirting to cornice answers that directly, and it does it without touching the original plasterwork.
The bay gets a pair of chairs rather than being left empty or filled with a wardrobe. A bay is the best light in the room and it is the reason the house looks the way it does from the street. Putting storage in it wastes both.
The cornice and ceiling rose are left as they are and painted with the ceiling, so they read as architecture rather than as an ornament that has been picked out.
Colour
Teal and blush against a warm neutral. Both are strong enough to hold the scale of the room and neither is doing anything clever. In a room with this much original detail, the colour scheme is better off being calm.
Details that matter
- Upholstered wall panels run full height, stopping cleanly under the cornice
- Wall lights on the headboard wall instead of bedside lamps, keeping the surfaces clear
- Curtains hung at cornice height rather than at the window head, to use the full wall
- A long mirror opposite the bay, throwing the window light back into the room
