A handsome late-Georgian house in north London with a rich palette by Tom Morris

‘Start with the art’ is a useful maxim in more ways than one. The colours and forms of an artwork can be endlessly inspiring, and a picture does not have to be in your own collection to provide an excellent springboard for a scheme. For interior designer Tom Morris, it was the palette favoured by the Italian artist Giorgio de Chirico that would influence the decoration of this late-Georgian house in north London. The house is situated on the historic Cloudesley Estate in Barnsbury, a lovely parcel of streets developed during the 1820s in the handsome late-Georgian style. Tom’s client is a father of two young daughters. He wanted to bring sophistication to interiors that had been somewhat overrun by family life, and to create fun spaces for the girls and also more grown-up zones in which he could entertain. ‘In terms of mood, he gave us an initial brief of warmth, earthy colour and masculinity,’ says Tom, who used this as a starting point for a hunt for sources of inspiration.

A short walk from the house is the Estorick Collection, a small gallery with a fine collection of early-20th-century Italian art and that brand of European modernism seemed like a perfect fit for the owner’s aesthetic. Eventually, Tom focused on the work of Giorgio de Chirico, an artist known for his surreal paintings of piazzas punctuated by figures both sculpted and human, and also the use of distinctively rich colours. ‘Looking at de Chirico’s paintings helped outline a main palette of terracotta and dark orange, teal and smoky blue – with bursts of primary reds and greens,’ he explains.

Curtains in Soane’s turmeric ‘Old Flax’, in the music room, also used in the sitting room, create a link between the two spaces. Little Greene’s ‘Bronze Red’ on the architrave contrasts with walls in Farrow & Ball’s ‘Treron’, which are the backdrop for Pinch’s ‘Gentle’ lamps on a 1950s French sideboard and a piano partnered by a 1920s Japanese shoe-polisher’s stool.

It is a clever choice that helped Tom to create interiors with the warmth and masculinity the owner sought. Tom was also canny in his choice of paint used for the walls. ‘Atelier Ellis does just what I wanted – strong colouration that still feels soft and not too artificial. I wanted to keep things ultimately rooted in a Georgian “drab” palette and then layer decoration on top of that.’ The colours also work well to create zones, with every room getting its own fresh take on the palette, so each one feels distinctive while the whole remains coherent.

Much of the rest of Tom’s work involved rethinking how the space was used and imposing a more rational approach. ‘We began in the kitchen on the lower-ground floor at the front of the house, where there was originally a massive island, while the back room had a big dining table that the girls would end up playing around,’ he explains. ‘By getting rid of the island and making space for a dining table, we helped the kitchen to function better as an entertaining space. Then the back became a more informal sitting area, which could be a proper space for play, but also a nice place for drinks when people come over for dinner.’ The same logic transformed the ground floor, with the front of the house becoming a formal sitting room painted in Atelier Ellis’s cosy mid-brown ‘Tea & Toast’, the awkward middle space a music room, and the back room – down a set of steps – a jolly playroom for the girls.

Steps lead down from the music room to this vibrant space lined in wallpaper by Diddletron, which sets off curtains in Sone’s ‘Trianon Stripe’, a Tylko cabinet and a rug from Larusi. The 1960s Swedish tripod light from Retrospective Interiors picks up on the sofa covered in ‘Hanging 1925’ from Christopher Farr Cloth.