Photography courtesy of The Modern House.
It wasn t a house and it had no details you d feel bad about getting rid of so we could sort of do what we wanted Textile designer Eleanor...
...Pritchard our Material Girl is talking about the converted flour storage building with its own tiny courtyard in East London that she and her husband Peter Pritchard purchased 12 years ago
The couple enlisted just-launched architecture firm Al-Jawad Pike to take their 1880s structure back to its original footprint and build a two-story house on the compact site.
The house, tucked behind the blue door, was originally the storeroom for the bakery next door, now converted into two apartments. (Shoreditch is also just steps away.)
Eleanor in her garden: “What’s nice is that when we want to join in, everything is right at our doorstep,” she says.
Eleanor painted a collection of vintage army ammunition cases gray and put them to use as planters.
Steel-framed glass doors lead into the front hall and the dining room.
Eleanor and Peter met as students at the University of Birmingham: he was studying English literature and Russian and she was studying history.
They both changed paths and re-trained: Eleanor has a degree in textile design from the Chelsea College of Arts and Peter focused on lighting design at The University College London Bartlett School.
Oak slatted walls introduce pattern and nuance to the space; they’re lit by a glass roof.
The downstairs floor is polished asphalt: “It’s a material that Dean had seen used in the Turner Contemporary project while he was at Chipperfield, ” explains Eleanor.
A slot shelf serves as an art display. Drain pipes for the glazed roof are accessible from the door behind the table.
The continuous skylight runs from the dining room to the adjacent kitchen. The window above the sink overlooks the entry and living area.
The kitchen has 4-millimeter-thick stainless-steel counters and an inset sink-and-a-half with incorporated drying area—all sourced from an industrial kitchen supplier.
The kitchen cabinets are faced with the same oak used for the slatting.
The glass roof extends to the end of the kitchen.
The white tiles and oak detailing reappear in the bathroom located between the kitchen and reception room.
Built-in shelving runs along the sink and shower (the room also has a storage cupboard large enough to incorporate the washing machine).
The front hall opens to a small living room with a bookshelf built under the stair, which is one of the few preserved details from the 1980s remodel.
Windows in the front overlook an alley and have, in addition to interior shutters, reeded glass for privacy.
In the reception room, a 1950s Heal’s daybed (passed down to Eleanor from her grandmother) is upholstered in Eleanor Pritchard’s Bilsdale pattern, part of a fabric collection called Aerial.
The walls throughout are painted French Grey from Little Greene, and the existing stairs were stripped and refinished with a dark gray floor paint.
The doors and door surrounds are oak.
The second bedroom is used as an office. Read more in The Modern House’s interview with Eleanor and Peter.
Rooms flow into one another on the ground floor. The compact upstairs has two bedrooms and an overhead storage space.