Visit this apartment in the daytime and, with its calming neutrals and lush greenery, you’d swear it was designed for tranquil days. But call at cocktail hour and the same space feels deeply decadent, its 1970s bar and vast, butter-coloured sofa perfect for fun evenings. It is also a great advert for how to make a plain, rented flat feel like a home, without major renovations.
A first viewing left interior designers Tatjana von Stein and Gayle Noonan distinctly underwhelmed. “It was a tired, unloved white box when we found it,” Von Stein says of the flat, which occupies the top two floors of a five-storey early 20th-century block in north London. Two bedrooms, a bathroom and the kitchen are on the lower level, while the spacious open-plan living-dining room is above.
The couple fell for the place because of the greenery on the doorstep: a balcony facing Hampstead Heath and, on the other side, wall-to-wall windows on to the tree canopy of neighbouring gardens. “I grew up in the mountains in Austria so, although I love the buzz and culture of London, I’m very happy up here in this urban treehouse,” Von Stein says.
As renters, the couple renovated with a light touch, relying on paint and furniture. “Renting is much more common in Europe, so it doesn’t feel strange to me, but it does mean Gayle can put the brakes on me going crazy on a redesign,” Von Stein says. To transform a rental with furniture, she suggests beginning with the mood. “I wanted this place to have a 70s lounge feel, but I didn’t want it to feel like a themed room, so there’s a mix of vintage and contemporary pieces along with things we’ve made or inherited.”
She combines eras and styles by sticking to specific materials, textures, colours and forms. Warm woods feature heavily, from her own-design Pontem dining table to the Biedermeier writing desk, which belonged to Von Stein’s grandmother. Curves are everywhere, from the velvet club chairs by Spanish designer Houtique to the stainless-steel Willy Rizzo coffee table and Von Stein’s own Ladies Pond bar stool.
Von Stein has smart advice for laying out an open-plan room. “It can feel daunting, so start with what’s important to you – a piece of art, or a favourite table. Find the perfect spot to place it and then work around that.” In Von Stein’s case, the focal point is a sofa by Fest Amsterdam, upholstered in beeswax-coloured wool from Rose Uniacke. Around this area, the other zones took shape: the long table, used for dining, working and reading, is bathed in the light from the angled windows, and close to the stairs down to the kitchen, with the couple’s record player and vinyl collection on hand too. The cocktail bar – which Von Stein had reveneered in a burr wood – is perfectly placed by the balcony, for drinks at sunset.
The spaces between these main zones feature art – a wooden sculpture that Von Stein found in Paris; an old faux marble (actually painted wood) classical pot and plinth inherited from her uncle – and large, lush indoor plants, including Strelitzia nicolai and Monstera deliciosa. Von Stein likes to throw in some playful touches too, like the kitschy 1950s-style resin lamp on the bar. “I’d be bored if it was too serious. You just need to add a little ‘wink’ to every room,” she says.
A shared passion for design was part of this couple’s story from the start. They met in 2013 when they were both working for a concept store in London. “We each had a slight obsession with chairs and started bombarding one another with pictures of them,” Von Stein laughs. When they founded their design studio in 2016, they named it Sella Concept, using the Latin word for chair. They married in 2018 in an outdoor ceremony at a remote farm in Andalucía.
In the living room, the quest for the perfect paint colour led to a collaboration with Mylands, and the creation of Sella, a warm neutral shade with hints of yellow. “To choose the right paint you need to consider room size and the amount of light; in a small dark room I’ll often go dark and indulgent, to play with what the room is giving you. Here there’s a lot of light so I wanted to calm that down.” Whatever the room size, Von Stein advises painting the ceiling in the same colour, for a more immersive effect: “There’s a feeling of being enveloped in what you’ve created.”
In the kitchen, Von Stein repainted the existing cabinets in Mylands’ avocado-hued Stockwell Green and swapped in new stainless-steel handles and striped blinds in a fabric from Spanish fabric maker Güell Lamadrid. “When you’re renting, it’s about working out which changes will make the biggest difference to the space, to make it feel like it’s yours,” Von Stein says.Living in the flat has been a positive experience all round. “I travel a lot for work and coming home now gives me a real sense of peace,” she says. “It’s a space for us to enjoy alone, or with friends. And being surrounded by greenery is incredibly nourishing: it all feels like a weekend away in the countryside, but still a stone’s throw away from London’s energy.”
