In this lovely corner of Islington, rows of handsome Georgian townhouses stand proudly in wide, leafy streets. Beyond one unassuming garden gate however, its ruffled blinds visible from the gardens below, is a particular treasure; the photographer Harry Carr’s three floor maisonette, decorated by his friend, the artist Christabel MacGreevy. The duo’s collaboration began serendipitously. Harry had been looking for a London base, somewhere to lay down roots after years of travelling the world, shooting campaigns for Gucci, Roksanda, Ferragamo, and Fendi (to name a few). ‘The house felt like an absolute no-go zone,’ he recalls of seeing the place for the first time, with its splintering floorboards and peeling walls, but gut instinct prevailed and by June the keys were his. ‘For the first few months I was sleeping on a mattress on the floor, surrounded by yellowing walls and fiberglass. Not exactly the height of glamour,’ he laughs.
Before Harry’s house, Christabel had already transformed her own rental flat using paint as her primary tool to give the place character and soul. She had also been involved in several friends’ renovations, researching and moodboarding for them. ‘I’m very inspired by Christabel’s grasp of colour as an artist and designer,’ says Harry. ‘I wanted to bring that into my house in a way that felt kind of romantic and camp, without going too Liberace.’
‘My brief from Harry was simple,’ laughs Christabel. ‘It was essentially, “I like what you did with your flat, so feel free to do the same with mine.”
As the artist took on Harry’s project, what began as friendly advice – helping him sift through eBay bids and paint swatches – evolved into a full interior renovation. ‘Eventually, I was given full reign,’ she enthuses. ‘I thought initially I was just going to make a few concepts for him, maybe do some Google hunts and make suggestions. But I became much more involved – he was out of the country, and I had begun liaising with the builders. It was an exciting learning curve.’ Christabel – whose multidisciplinary practice encompasses collage, printmaking, textiles and more recently, ceramic sculpture – took to her first interior design project with gusto, reconfiguring the layout and injecting the space with the inventive energy and idiosyncrasy of her work.
‘When I first visited the house I was struck by the abundance of light. I knew immediately it could take quite a lot of colour,’ she says. There were a few must-haves. Initial designs centered around a warm orange that eventually enveloped the central stairwell. ‘I knew this colour had to be in this house,’ Christabel explains. ‘By using this shade in the central part of the home the space became anchored, letting the other colours around it sing. It is astonishing to me how much colour changes the feeling of a space without doing anything structural.’