Georgian Town House

Reportage 13595417 | © living4media / Narratives / Smith, Rachael | 32 images

Moving from an apartment in an über-modern, Norman Foster-designed glass building on the southwest bank of the Thames to a Georgian end of terrace house in Islington must have been quite a change for Stephen Gough, but he embraced the experience. ‘My partner works as a GP in Birmingham during the week and she joins me at weekends, so I needed to find a place that was within a short drive of Euston station, ” he explains. “The housing stock in this part of London tends to be Victorian and Georgian, so I knew I was likely to end up buying a period building.’What Stephen lost in terms of cutting-edge design he gained in terms of character: tall ceilings, beautiful plasterwork and elegant windows that pull light into the building. He also inherited some of the less pleasing traits of a house constructed nearly 200 years ago: ‘I was aware that there was a problem with damp because I had commissioned a specialist survey, but the expert hadn’t recognised the extent of the issue, ’ Stephen remembers.With a busy job in the City, Stephen knew that he wouldn’t be able to oversee the damp proofing works; he also realised that he needed help decorating the house.‘My previous flat was furnished so I literally owned one bed, ’ he confesses. His brief to Nicola Pratt of LIFE Style, an interior design firm based in Islington, was relatively open-ended: ‘I thought it made sense to have a style that was in keeping with the period of the building, but with a modern edge, ’ he notes. ‘Other than that, I was really open to ideas.’