Inside Brian Woulfe’s Elegant London Pied-à-Terre in the Heart of Little Venice

Hi Luxury Home Show, I'm Brian Wolfe, founder and creative director of Design by Wolfe, and this is my London Pied-à-Terre. I have taken the ceilings back up to their original heights. If I'm cooking in the evening, I do want to be able to see the TV. The sofa, again, a custom design from our studio. Welcome to my boudoir, small but perfectly formed, a bit like myself. So welcome to Little Venice, ideally situated between Notting Hill and St. John's Wood and close to our offices in Marylebone. It was an area I decided to focus my search on when looking to buy a property. I found this property just over three years ago before I started a back-to-brick refurbishment, which focused on the large entertaining spaces and, of course, room for two very large beasts, Barney and Porter. It won't come as a surprise when I say I was my own worst client. I see so many spectacular features and materials and products in the projects that we work on that I had to have them all in my own property. Starting with home technology, so we have a Crestron system in this home. We have our audiovisual, our lighting, our security, our cameras, everything is on the one system. It's the most important function that we have when we're entering and leaving the property, from arming the security systems to selecting the lighting scene that we want at different times of the day. So we've got a system that I like to think grandma could use if she walked in. It says day, afternoon, evening, night and off and it's the same format that we use in all rooms in the property and something we do in all of the projects that we work on. So it's very user-friendly and very clear for anybody who visits the property for the first time. Storage was a really important factor. The ceilings had reduced heights when I originally purchased the property, assuming that they were worried about the cost of heating the property back in the 80s and the 90s. So I have taken the ceilings back up to their original heights and then we have this wall-to-wall storage for coats, shoes, we have our laundry, washer, dryer, ironing board and then we use the same joinery detail to conceal the door to the guest WC. Hard-wearing materials were really important. So all of the paints are wipe-able, they're from an incredible French brand called Argil. We have large dogs called Barney and Porter and they slobber and they come in wet and they shake. So it's important that we can wipe down the surfaces and the material. Again, wide plank, double brushed flooring. We've taken all the soft green out of the floors so that heavy dogs with their claws don't create lots of marks and scratches on the floors. So really the house was designed for the dogs, not for me. So this is obviously our kitchen, living, dining space. The kitchen was here when I purchased the property. Again, really low ceilings and some horrific glazed double doors that took you into a smaller living space and a dining table in the bay window. It was a back-to-brick refurbishment, so right back to the joists on the floor and above me and back to the brick walls. And one of the first things that I fell in love with when we got to that stage of the project was the amount of light that was coming from the front and the back of the property. So having this walkway that connected the spaces and allowed the light to flow during the day was really important for me. As we come through the space, this was a second bedroom. There was a narrow corridor here on the left. So again, taking out this wall, putting in the structural supports that were needed was one of the first things that we tackled because I wanted to create this large, open-plan kitchen, living, dining space for us to entertain in, unwind in and just enjoy London living instead of having a spare bedroom that was never used. Welcome to the kitchen. If you can't tell, I love my food and I love sharing my food with my friends and family. So the kitchen design started with the island. I knew I wanted bar seating so that friends and family could sit at bar, have a drink or have a drink and chop the onions for me so that we could engage and have a conversation while meal prep was being done. It also needs to function as a space to lay foods and drinks out when we're doing a bigger drinks party or a special occasion at home. I really wanted my hub on the island. I know people debate about having the sink or the hub on the island, but for me, if I'm cooking in the evening, I do want to be able to see the TV and I want to be able to engage with people on the sofa and in the dining area. I have a pet hate of overhead extractor fans. They don't do a good job, they look ugly and they're very noisy. So it was a no-brainer for me to go for the Bora downdraft. Everything goes in the dishwasher afterwards. It does a great job of sucking up all of the odours and the steam at source before it becomes airborne. With traditional extractors, as steam becomes airborne, it naturally escapes left and right and the power of the extractor just isn't there to pull it back in and for it to be efficient. Storage, I have the herbs to my left. I have my knife block and utensils to the right and then below me, I have all my pots and pans at easy access and then an easy swivel and turn to dump everything into the sink afterwards. I really love my natural marbles and stone. A really expensive day out at the stone yard led me to discovering this selection of marble resulting in this really dramatic bookmatch detail behind the sink. Everybody asks how do I cope with a natural marble in my kitchen? Does it stain? Is it hard to maintain? Yes, it does stain. Yes, it's hard to maintain but we've had it treated with a UV cured liquid or finish that stops the stains penetrating the marble. So anybody who is looking at putting a natural marble into their kitchen, I highly recommend doing some additional stain guarding and protection on your marbles to make your life a little easier. This marble has been in just over three years and I have no visible stains and marks and it is a heavily used kitchen and I love my spaghetti bolognese. As well as my love for natural marbles and stones, I really love using metallic finishes especially in joinery. I don't however have the same budgets that my clients have so this is a paint effect that we've applied to this run of joinery at high level and at low level to give you the illusion of a real metallic finish and then complemented with living metal finishes on the sockets, on the tap and on the hardware that you see dotted around the kitchen and then we've got this stained oak veneer on this side of the island and again on this run and all of our drawers are stained in the same colour. Because we're in an open plan kitchen living dining space it was really important that this added to the ambience of the room in particular at night time. So I went for this fluted glass detail with lighting inside the cabinets, below the cabinets and above the cabinets so that we could play with the lighting details and the atmosphere that we wanted to create in the evenings. It also means it's easy to find things, I can see where my glassware is and where my wine glass is. Storage is really important, we host a lot so ample storage for cutlery, for lots of crockery, plenty of storage for utensils and pots and pans. We have our dishwasher, we have the bins, we've got the herbs, fridge freezer and then we've got our bank of ovens. So we've got the steam oven, the oven and that's not a warming drawer, it's the vacuum drawer which I use a lot for sous vide cooking. I've hidden the breakfast station so the toaster and the coffee machine is stored away and hidden just so we have a cleaner counter surface in the kitchen and then one could argue the most important appliance in the house. So a multi-functional dining area was really important for us. I knew I wanted somewhere to entertain six to eight guests in the evening or for lunch so we created this banquette area in the window and we get to enjoy all year round all the wonderful seasons that London has to offer us as we look over the communal gardens. This was one of these marble slabs that we found on our day out at the marble yard. Again I didn't know where it was going to be used at the time of purchasing it but it has worked perfectly in the scheme for here. This was designed with the dogs in mind also so it's bespoke upholstery by my company and we've actually lined this with incontinent sheets so if the dogs do have any accidents or friends spill their wine the liquids aren't being absorbed into the structure and the bones of the banquette and can be cleaned at surface level by a professional cleaner. For me I love sitting here on my laptop responding to my emails and watching the world go by. So the lighting and window treatment controls were equally important in this space. I wanted to be able to create a space that felt inviting both day and night. Blinds are automated to come down at dusk and we have our blackout blind treatments that can be brought down when we're enjoying a movie in the early evening during the summer months and we want to avoid the glare. Taking you through into the living area again really designed with dogs in mind so it's an antique Persian rug on the floor it has stood the test of time for many many years and has continued to do so with our dogs really really hard wearing and easy to clean. The sofa again a custom design from our studio same treatment as we had on the banquette it has been lined with the incontinence sheets in case the dogs have any accidents. The dogs haven't been having the accidents however the guests have and we wanted something just large and oversized that was inviting that we could lay out, enjoy time with the dogs, watch tv in front of the fire and just unwind after a busy day in the office. Again fireplace a marble surround this is one of the marbles that we found on that expensive day out. I wanted something just elegant and simple. I've matched all the details of the opening for the tv with the weight of the fireplace just to balance it. There was no chimney in the apartment when I purchased it so this is actually a bioethanol fire so no exhaust or no flue is needed for this fire and it gives out an awful lot of heat and I am a bit hot now doing this tour. Lighting is a real passion of mine and it was really important to get the lighting right in the space. Almost every light that you see is on its own circuit and can be controlled individually this is a 1950s 1960s Italian Mirana chandelier that I picked up from one of our antique dealers it originated from a hotel in Italy. We have all of the lighting that has been integrated into the shelves that flank the chimney breast. We have recessed lighting at the front and up lights at the back but then we've also lit the shelves at the front with some recessed down lights so that the front edges of everything on the shelf are also lit as opposed to just everything at the back of the unit. We haven't dressed the shelves as a traditional library you have your typical coffee table books and accessories and trinkets and knickknacks that we have picked up on our on our travels as well as photos and then I have utilized the the shelves closer to the dining room as a bar area. I think when people visit the space for the first time or the 10th time they see the space and they immediately feel relaxed in in the hope that they are about to have a drink served up to them. More often or not they have to make the drink themselves these days but I think that really works well and then the swivel chair from a London design company works really well whether you're engaging with people in the sofa or you're engaging with people sitting in the dining area or just unwinding talking to somebody cooking in the kitchen it works really well and is very practical and helps to connect the three different areas. Before I show you the rest of the apartment let's talk about the second most controversial piece in the space. I'm the first most controversial just for clarity but this piece of art was a filler piece that we found last minute for the it wasn't an intentional find it was completely accidental and ran out of budget so found something unique that worked with the color palette of the room in Menorca through a dealer a friend of ours and it gets a lot of hate online. I don't care I love it but the lighting is the most important part. I think if you're going to invest into your interiors and into your art make sure you light it correctly. You'll see here and in the kitchen and in the bedroom we're using art lights from TM Lighting and they're a consistent product in all of our projects because they do such an incredible job at lighting your art. So maybe as I take you through to the bedroom now is the best time to show you the guest wc. It was designed to conceal the door and to make it look like there wasn't the guest wc just off of the entrance hallway. It's small but we've made the best out of the space. We focus on lighting for the art, decorative lighting with the pendant beside the vanity and then using a small marble vanity wall hanging and we've gone for a dark stone on the floors and the walls with some nice metal trim details above and below the access panel for maintenance of the toilet. So welcome to my boudoir and I don't get to say that often enough. Small but perfectly formed a bit like myself. This is a north facing room so color and getting it right was really important. I didn't want the space to feel cold so I've used warmer pigments and tones on the paint. We've color drenched it in the same color, skirtings, architraves, walls, ceilings, cornices. I really don't care about the view onto a London street so I had no problem unlike a lot of people online in putting my headboard in front of the window. It allowed me the opportunity to have more storage, a view over the television so on the rare occasions I do get to have a lie-in I can enjoy it without having a crit in my neck. Lighting was really important so we haven't used any down lights in the space. We have a decorative contemporary light fixture from Tom Faulkner that's giving light in three different directions. We've got the reading lights, we've got PIRs underneath the bedside lockers that come on at night time when you step onto the the rug so that you can get to the bathroom if you need to without turning all of the lights on and then they go off again 30 seconds later. Really heavy drapery and these are lined with material that helps dampen the acoustics from a London street. I wouldn't know I was in London when the curtains are closed and I get a perfectly quiet environment to sleep in. Storage, again we've connected the spaces with similar stains. There are actually three stains in the joinery in the wardrobe. We've got the mid stain on the front face, we've got the darker stain for the body of the carcass and we've got the lighter stain on the fronts of the drawers and it gives it a nice depth and variety to the the grain that comes through from the wood. So this is my favourite piece in the house if there was a fire it's the one thing I'd be carrying out the door potentially with the dogs but hopefully they'll be following behind rather than being carried out the door. Again corrected it with the art light. It's a vanity table for the hair dryer and sunglasses. Some of the live finishes and the details so the live metals on the the door hardware and again consistency in the finishes from the light switches to the door handles to the trims that you will see in the floor where you have transitions between wooden floor and tile surfaces. So welcome to the last room of the house, the ensuite. Storage was really important so ample storage for towels, your laundry baskets, really deep storage for your toiletries. I've used a real limestone for the counter surface here and then a decorative paint finish on the wall and the ceilings done to complement the large format ceramic tiles that are in the shower and on the floor. Again consistency in the metal finishes for the the sink, the flush plates, the shower or the towel rails rather and the shower controls. Thank you for visiting Luxury Home Show it has been an absolute pleasure showing you around my London pedestrian today. If you liked what you saw and you want to find out more all the information will be in the caption below. See you again soon. Hi Luxury Home Show, I'm Caroline and I'm Felix. Together we run Zulufish. We specialise in luxury, interior design, architectural design and design and build. Welcome to our family home in West London.