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With an almost impossibly short timescale of just five weeks, Sarah was invited to design, source and implement a kitchen and living room for The English Glasshouse installation at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. This project diary records a few of the keys steps in rising to the challenge.
This is the end result, the installation pictured at dusk.
The starting point was scale drawings of the building provided by The English Glasshouse, together with a specification of the materials they would be using.
Deakin Lock, the garden designers, provided us with sketches of their design. We collaborated closely with them to co-ordinate the interior colours and the planting scheme.
Then it was over to us to come up with ideas. We created a number of mood boards like this one.
This is the one we chose, wanting visitors to feel they were in a friend’s home rather than visiting a busy show. Many hundreds of you stopped to chat and you told us we’d succeeded.
We roughly sketched some internal elevations...
...and experimented with furniture layouts.
Once decisions were made, we created detailed drawings, installation and logistical plans and computerised 3D models like this one.
Then photorealistic rendered images showing the orangery by day...
...and by night. Compare the visualisations with the real photo coming up next.
The white Carrera marble worktop on the island contrasts with the gleaming AGA in Pearl Ashes. The beautiful craftsmanship of the kitchen joinery is painted French Grey to complement the toffee-colour striations of the granite worktops and the stone flooring.
The bold pink of the kitchen island unit immediately welcomes you. Who could resist a colour called ’Mischief’?
Every home needs focal points to invite you from one space to another. This moth orchid from the RHS’s botanical archives seemed the perfect image and so we commissioned a large canvas print to draw the eye from the kitchen to the sitting room.
...as you can see in this 3D visualisation...
...and in this photo. The orchid was the inspiration for the colour scheme. With so many beautiful flowers of every imaginable colour and hue on display at the show we didn’t want the orangery to look drab!
To make the view from the French doors as interesting as the view from the kitchen, this image from the National Maritime Museum was our first choice. But then we thought how frustrating it might be trying to read the text once furniture was in the way so...
...we chose this 14th century document in Portuguese instead. How ironic that the first person to see it, a member of the site catering staff, turned out to be a student of mediaeval Portuguese literature.
We carefully calculated where furniture would lie relative to the lines of text so the whole effect would remain in balance, then cropped the image, resized it, colour-matched it to the orchid print...
...and had Surface View produce it to fit the entire wall in four 1.2m wide drops beneath a ’Spearhead’ chandelier.
As you can see from our pre-visualisations...
...our designs integrate subtle layers of lighting from the outset and electrical, lighting and home automation experts are involved from the beginning through to installation...
... to ensure that power, data and media cables are available exactly where they are needed.
3D visualisation of the sitting room by day...
...and by night.
Here’s a real photgraph showing the lighting effects, the Robert Langford furniture and the elegant ceramic ’Galileo’ table lamps. And the cushions...we had fun choosing beautiful fabrics in lovely colours with different textures to catch the light.
The mirror, with its large chamfered frame, gives an increased sense of space. Its glamorous style sits well against the mural and reflects views of the orangery between the two rooms, helping to tie them together.
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves...
While the interiors team was still busy sourcing furniture, the installation team was on site in the rain
Just five long and busy weeks after our first involvement in the project, the final day of the build dawns...
...the grounds of Chelsea Hospital are a sea of hi-viz jackets...
...and these abandoned boots at the south gate sum up how our feet are feeling.
Through the window of the completed orangery, Sarah Buxton is demonstrating her passion for perfection.
And the show begins!
We created a bespoke splashback in a quiet, contemporary style using a colourway chosen for the silver foil that picks up the chrome of the AGA; we used wallpaper in the same design but a different colourway in the sitting room to help unify the two areas.
Photo by Tim James of Mabel Gray
In the coming week, tens of thousands of people were to admire our designs and about 3,000 of them came in for a closer look. The following photos show just a few of our visitors...
News presenters Mary Nightingale...
...and Sophie Raworth (left) with her sister Kate.
Chelsea pensioner
Michelin-starred chef Galton Blackiston came in to demonstrate the AGA and make...
...wonderfully tasty morsels for us.
Galton Blackiston also met John Hurt CBE, perhaps best known for his roles in Alien and The Elephant Man.
Interior designer Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen
Former Beatle Ringo Starr and his wife, former Bond girl Barbara Bach, with Richard Gilham, whose friendly and efficient workforce constructed the orangery in just 12 days.
Alex Polizzi, business guru and presenter of The Fixer (centre) met Giles Henman, director of The English Glasshouse and Sarah Buxton.
Our hard work is recognised.
Sarah Buxton with the Certificate of Merit from the RHS.
And night falls...
Credits...
Most photography by Tim James of Mabel Gray with some contributions by Elliott Manley and other members of the team.
The beautiful craftsmanship of the kitchen joinery is by Bryan Turner. The paint is ’French Grey’ and ’Mischief’ by Little Greene.
The bespoke splashback was created by using Brian Yates’s ’Waves’ wallpaper behind glass.
The ’Black Forest’ granite worktops and the stone flooring by Lapicida.
The LED downlights were lent to us by Photonstar and the pendant lights by DAR Lighting.
This electric AGA can be controlled remotely, even while you are away from the house, by using a mobile phone app.
Imagery from collections by Surface View was also printed and installed by them.
Image manipulation by Elliott Manley
The ’New Deco’ sofa and the ’Heath’ chairs were lent to us by Robert Langford.
The elegant ceramic ’Galileo’ table lamps were lent to us by Chad Lighting and personally delivered to our studio by the owner of the company and his wife.
The Electroscape LED fire was lent to us by The Platonic Fireplace Company.
The mirror was generously made especially for us by Simpsons.
The ’Spearhead’ table lamps and chandelier were lent to us by David Hunt Lighting.
