Acanthus Leaf Concept

Located on the lower ground floor of this modern architecturally designed home, is this contemporary take on an old European wine cellar.  During the base build, when all designs had already been signed off, the client flew into town one day, excited about a weekend dinner she and her husband had had in the cellar of a 16th Century French chateau.  Her brief to us was to translate the feeling and ambience they had experienced into this contemporary idiom.  After exhaustive research, top London Interior Design Studio René Dekker Design presented their ideas to the client.  The essential elements would be a combination of vaulted stone ceilings and bas relief plaster mouldings with traditional style light fittings.  

With the layout of this games room already agreed, it was just a matter of revising the finishes, decorations and light fittings.  First up was the design of the room.  Here the team settled on low level classical panelling that would have a distressed paint finish, giving it an authentic feel.  We then worked closely with London’s top specialist decorators DKT designing a recognisable but modern moulding associated with 16th Century French architecture.  Once this was agreed, we over laid the design in various scales onto the elevations to see what would work best.  Eventually we settled on an over scaled option that would have less of a repeat but give the contemporary punch we were after.  Full scale drawings were hung on the walls at an early stage to get a sense of proportion after which the full scale maquette’s were then hung.  To avoid a repetitive look, we rotated the design as well as cutting it off in different places at joints where the ceiling met the wall. Finally the walls and panelling were given a distressed paint treatment, as if the walls had aged over the last few hundred years.  

The final scheme resulted in a real blend of old and new, with a large helping of the theatrical, focused lighting and plush comfortable seating.  To one side a large pool table dominates the games area and to the other, a fully temperature controlled wine cellar houses the clients’ collection of wines and champagnes just ready to be served!