The first method sees the problem of the building, and the solution appears to include covering the dado rails, boxing in the cornicing, skimming over the panelling, stripping the fireplaces, and getting the place to look like a flat conversion in a Berlin warehouse. This method has the obvious hope that the building’s windows stay in their strange, unaligned, awkward position, which no one will challenge.
The second method requires that one listens to the building and consequently designs the property surrounding what is already present.
Clients usually come to you with the first method in mind. Most likely, they purchased that Victorian terrace due to its well bilaterally symmetrical, brick construction, and now they want to gut the interior to resemble a Pinterest “mood board” of Soft Minimalism. The job’s design facilitation is arguably just that; they are having you design their home in accordance with their goals, while also enforcing that you not give them the home they want so they will eventually move out and sell to someone who will promptly undo anything you have done.
Period homes have personalities, and they will rarely align with your goals. Victorian period homes enjoy layered colors of paint, and rooms filled with life. Edwardian houses tend toward light and air. Georgian houses want proper building materials and symmetrical design elements. New ‘-build’ homes require exactly what period homes do not. If you ask period homes to act like a new-build development, it will be like asking your lab to exhibit feline behavior.
Good designers exhibit several common traits. They start by referencing the building, not the client’s mood boards. They understand the building’s historical periods — what components were original, what was added in the Victorian era and later influenced the Edwardian era, what was introduced in the ‘70s to give a false sense of history. They use elements the building would recognize: lime plaster on lath walls, timber on timber flooring, and real wallpaper. They honor cornices as opposed to fighting against them.
They also understand what rules actually matter. Listed building consent only relates to listed properties, but conservation areas capture a surprising number of buildings people didn’t know were located in those areas. Article 4 directions change what can be done to the building’s exterior. Although this isn’t design work per se, it’s the type of work that turns a rewarding project into a planning enforcement letter.
If the context is right, the work itself isn’t that difficult. Honor the building’s bones. Use colors that would’ve been used in that period. Don’t replace original features with reproductions unless absolutely necessary. Period work is the most rewarding and one of the most consistently mishandled aspects of domestic interior design, and using the right approach in this area is well worth the effort.