One of our favourite parts of our job as stagers is finding tucked away streets we have not yet discovered in London and Chadwell Street is one of these. Its architectural roots date back to the Seventeeth Century when an artificial waterway called the New River was constructed to bring fresh Spring Water to London from Hertfordshire and the New River Company built on the land around it.

It now has a glorious mix of Georgian shops and houses and Victorian garden squares and terraces. Being a hop skip and a pirouette away from  Sadlers Wells with some fine Edwardian tenements and preserved Art Deco design, Chadwell Street is a dream plot with the church, schools, health centres and independent shops providing an infrastructure that services everyone from those with young families to the international business couple that want to put down roots in the capital.

Dream clients Tasou Associates had seen our work on The Modern House website and wanted us to help them stage a four bedroom house to help sell their seven crafted contemporary townhouses. The cute landscaped exterior hides a large light-filled spacious interior with free flowing interiors that effortlessly link the inside with the small wall climbing garden areas and white walls throughout. The perfect blank canvas. While the black marble and walnut veneer highlights the luxury of this project.

We wanted to pull potential buyers’ eyes to different parts of the room as you descend the staircase and hoped to highlight the free-flowing nature of the downstairs space that houses two terraces a kitchen, bathroom and sitting room. We picked a Danish designed limited edition sofa from Made that looked as beautiful from the back as the front and pieces that were reminiscent of a South of France getaway. Each piece important in its own right from the beautiful pink vase by Talia James to the small waterfall of wallpaper in one room by Tracy Kendall and Formworks Studio prints on the walls .

The points on the Cherner chair legs echoe the points on the antique African stool. The pink Talia vase and black candlesticks we are mirrored in the print above. The wicker of the bowl on the table and Norwegian Bambi chair  lead your eyes out to the wicker in the garden. When our clients first saw the staging they were blown away by it, their eyes darting everywhere. This is exactly what we want people to feel as they enter a house, elated by everything in it and able to see themselves living their dream life there. None of our pieces inaccessible. Everything affordable to the kind of people buying this house. Testament to a dream partnership, Tasou got a firm offer in the first week.

We always have a character in mind when putting our stagings together and this time we had the idea of the kind of person who would pick things up in their travels around London from art show to vintage fair, antique shop to high street shop. A mixed bag of items with different price tags to show a lack of pretension and make people feel comfortable in this interior instead of feeling like they had wandered into an unachievable art gallery.

Stunning handmade vase by Talia James sits next to some Danish candlesticks and a Hennes candlestick with a Krenit style bowl in the background from Denmark.

The Formworks prints worked so well in this staging – seen here over the black marble TV shelf.

We wanted the furniture to look almost like it was gliding over the stunning concrete floor that had been so beautifully laid.

By chance an orange jug echoed the colour in the downstairs bathroom beautifully after a last minute change in colour from the architect. It helps being psychic in this job.

The Cherner chair in the ground floor second sitting room pulls the eye back from the door as you step into the house.

 

We decided against headboards and kept the bedrooms simple focusing on the fact the architect had used quirky lights by the beds

 

We made a ground level bedroom feel fresh and echo the greenery outside, giving texture to the wall with a small waterfall of wallpaper by Tracy Kendall while not taking up too much of the small room.  

The mixed midcentury ceramics in different textures pulled the eye into the bathroom.

We chose a poster that acted as an arrow to point at the gorgeous light pouring in.

Staging by

Lucy Ryder Richardson lucy@modernshows.com

Petra Curtis petra@modernshows.com

Architect/developer

Tasou Associates – tasouassociates.com

Thanks to Form: formworksstudio.co.uk

Taliadesigner:  taliadesignermaker.co.uk

Tracy Kendall: tracykendall.co.uk

Photography: Dan Glasser

Images © The Modern House