Moving into a new house often comes with a few surprises and items left behind by previous owners but for Sophie Warburton and her husband, it was an altogether surreal experience. “We picked up the keys and went to the new house, opened the door and I just stood on the doorstep and cried,” recalls Sophie, the founder of homeware platform Host Home and ex-style director of The Telegraph. The tears were not because she realised she did not love the house she'd just bought, a rather lovely terraced house in Brook Green, but because of some of the surprises the previous owner had left. The house had been lived in by a couple who were in the process of divorce, and things had become rather messy as a result.
However, once Sophie and her husband, Tom, had disposed of the previous owner's sex toys that they kept finding in rooms all over the house, replastered the patch of wall that had been stripped down to bare bricks to remove a family mural and dealt with the lack of electricity in the living room, they set about creating a calm and grounded house for their growing family. This was not the couple's first time renovating a house; in fact it's the third that Sophie has done. They moved from a house in Highbury that they had completely gutted and redone, so they knew that "when you start tinkering with one bit, there’s a cascading effect,” she explains. With that in mind, (and an unfortunate inheritance of Japanese knotweed to deal with), they weren't keen to undertake structural work.
“We have learnt the amazing effect that colour can have” Sophie explains. The ground floor is a perfect example of this; the kitchen area alone had three different types of floor in it, and they quickly replaced this with a carpet in a warm neutral. “The room feels instantly bigger rather than having three little segments to it” Sophie confirms. “The kitchen units were all pillar box red and harsh on the eye,” she continues. “Having gutted somewhere previously, we had a knee jerk reaction to rip it out but in actual fact, we didn’t need a new kitchen, just a refresh. A soft green paint and new tiles has made a world of difference and it automatically feels much calmer.”
The house has a distinctly peaceful atmosphere, but this has not been achieved by Zen-like minimalism. The alchemy is actually a happy consequence of Sophie and Tom having entirely different tastes and finding clever ways to bring their disparate styles together. Sophie's design sensibilities are in part informed by her upbringing and her interior designer mother, Vicky Parkinson, who was on hand to give advice throughout the process. “She would bring me 30 years of experience. She’s the voice of the reason,” admits Sophie. She describes her mother's interiors as “mixing a traditional colour palette with contemporary art, or an antique, classic sofa shape covered in a bold fabric so it doesn’t feel staid,” which is very much the feeling of her own house. “If it was up to me,” says Sophie, “the house would be cosy and modern-chintzy, but if it were up to Tom, it would all be wood, metal and beige. If you took all the stuff out, it’d be very Tom, but with all the stuff in, it’s very me and it softens it.”
The “stuff” SJ refers to is made up of the pieces she constantly collects from around the world. “I once had to leave all my clothes in New York to get a load of trinkets home,” she confesses. The jugs in the living space are from Umbria – “every time I go to my friend’s house there I make a pilgrimage to buy all the ceramics I can and I always buy from a different maker” – there's a hat bought in France and the pièce de résistance? A large portrait in a gilt frame on the first floor landing, which Sophie bought online in the first lockdown because “I was so depressed and everyone else was buying earrings”. It sits outside the couple's enviable bedroom, which extends the length of the house from a bay window at the front to an ensuite overlooking the garden, with built-in cupboards on either side of the bed and built-in wardrobes leading into the bathroom.
There are three rooms which have a bolder colour scheme than the rest of the house; two of the spare rooms, one a soft pink with Sophie's beloved chintz on the curtains and its neighbour a teal blue with an orange chair that lifts the room. Tom's office is a lovely brick red that works brilliantly in the small space, which is flooded with light from the landing and a large window. The way in which Sophie has played with colour in the house gives it a wonderful personality, and reflects the style that she has made Host Home known for. As Host is set to expand in the US this year, and the couple are preparing for the imminent arrival of their first child, the tranquil feel of the house can be no bad thing, and a house is certainly much more tranquil without unwanted personal effects from the previous owner hiding in the cupboards.