Tour a Charming London Townhouse Where Color and Pattern Set the Mood

Pourquoi pas?Why not?

That happy-go-lucky phrase was the guiding design principle for this eye-popping London townhouse, designed byBodil Bjerkvikfor a French businessman who splits his time between the English capital and a family chateau near Luxembourg. Beetle green, lacquered walls? Pourquoi pas? Fanciful wallpaper all around? Pourquoi pas? Color and pattern galore? Pourquoi pas?

The home in question was a typical Chelsea townhouse, renovated in 2006, with lots of floors but not a lot of light. The client had moved in during the pandemic and wanted to inject the place with warmth, texture, and color—a bit of armor against London’s dreary weather.

“After you do one winter here you understand,” says Bjerkvik, a pro at combatting seasonal slumps from growing up in Norway. “You need color. You need layers. You need what I call ‘an interiors hug.’ I wanted the client to walk in the door and smile.” So right in the entryway she hung a swirling Murano glass light fixture and a painting by Sebastian Helling, laid the ground with vibrant French carpets, and installed a fancifully patterned scalloped-edged window treatment to match nearby throw pillows. A cheerful amuse bouche, so to speak, for the rest of the home.

“I wanted a house that was colorful and cozy, like the English do so well,” says her client. “Bodil is very good with colors and textures and I trusted her artistic flair.”

Around the house, Bjerkvik used those decorative tools to combat potential drabness. To handle the low ceilings in the sitting room, she went with an all-over high gloss green: “It creates more height to really encapsulate the room,” she explains of the color, tinged with a bit of yellow. Her client raised an eyebrow, but in the end he went for it. To expand the glass-enclosed back room, they created a mirror wall with local artisan Rupert Bevan. And in smaller spaces like the powder rooms, for example, she used wallpaper to enliven—selecting bold patterns likeDe Gourney’s Deco MonkeysandSchumacher’s Citrus Garden, by Josef Frank。在餐厅里,同样的,一个红色的内置shelving unit was lined with marbleized paper.

For the furnishings, Bjerkvik, who clocked many years in the art world, scoured shops for vintage and antique conversation pieces that would add serious character (she’s working on an online shop where she’ll sell her finds). “I like to have something old in every room. I think it gives it gravitas. Otherwise it looks like a furniture catalog,” she explains. In the living room, for example. Rose Uniacke velvet sofas sit with vintage French antiques and a collectable Ingrid Donat coffee table. Across the house, family heirlooms, like a set of 18th-century chairs that have been in the client’s family for 270 years, are mixed into Bjerkvik's colorful cocktail, lending the home a more personal tone.

“In the end, the house feels happier and easier to live in,” says her satisfied client of the mood-enhancing redo. “Every room has its own idea, but fits in with the next.”