Italianate Modern in Full Color: Interior Design Jill MacNair’s Own Renovation in London

London-based interior designer Jill MacNair has a penchant for color and for idiosyncratic interiors that “feel as great as they look.” In the renovation of her own dwelling, a 3-bedroom Grade II listed Victorian in Peckham, MacNair carried out her enduring obsessions and deep connections to art, culture, and design. MacNair, her husband Neil, and their two teenaged children moved into the house in November of 2020, just before the second lockdown in the UK, and lived in it for a year before beginning the design work. “This was helpful as it allowed me to scrutinize how to improve the room layouts, such as in the kitchen and attic bedroom,” she explains. She cold called Architecture for London, enlisting them for their expertise in planning and conservation. “As a designer, I was bringing set ideas on what I wanted to do with the house, especially from having lived in it, and they were very respectful of this.” In June of 2023, the renovation of 1838 Italianate building was complete. “The design was motivated by making a Grade II listed house livable for a family while maintaining the historic atmosphere,” Jill describes. “Piero Portaluppi’s Milanese villas, in particular Villa Necchi Campiglio, became a reference point. That famous house has a lot of natural elegance, which felt present in this building too.”


The resulting design is a palette of stainless steel, sapele and oak wood, Italian ceramic tile, muted paint colors, and a collection of antique classics from Luigi Colani, Gae Aulenti, and Ingo Maurer, among others. Join us for a tour as MacNair shares some of her favorite resources along the way.


Photography by Beth Evans courtesy of Jill MacNair.
Above: The kitchen and dining areas inhabit the basement. “The earthy-pink color in the kitchen was selected to harmonize with moody basement light levels, but applied in a gloss finish to enliven the result,” says MacNair. The color is Monkey Tail from Francesca’s Paints complemented with glossy red tiles, Din by Konstantin Grcic for Mutina. “The red is just so perfect and deep.” The vintage Ercol lounge chair has been with MacNair for years: it used to live in her son’s bedroom when he was a baby.
Above: The built in bench upholstery is from The Cloth Shop in Notting Hill. The dining chairs are the Lightwood Chair designed by Jasper Morrison for Maruni. “I didn’t want a statement chair. I did want an expertly designed and very beautiful one.” The pendant is the Maru Pendant by Ingo Maurer.
Above: “I like that ‘non-kitchen kitchen’ look, as we used to call it in my magazine days,” says MacNair. “The island had to contain more practical storage and its dimensions emerged from thinking about what needed to go in there: cutlery on the dining table side, pots and pans beneath the hob, and so on.” The kitchen cabinets are custom-designed in oak and reddish-toned sapele wood. “The design emerged from studying peeling bark on maple trees and Lucien Freud’s Man’s Head.”
Above: The custom cabinets are rounded on one side of the partial U-shaped kitchen. “Stainless steel, in contrast, adds gloss and utility,” says MacNair. Integrated into the kitchen island is a Novy cooktop and a Quooker faucet. Throughout the kitchen, integrated appliances are Miele: “I tend to go German.”
Above: “This was a great idea I can’t take credit for. Our architect from Architecture for London, Alastair, came up with it to cover up the old pipe works leading to the old island unit. Our new island is shuffled further from the windows. We didn’t want to rip up the whole concrete floor, so he came up with the circle shape cut out and I selected a red travertine because I’m obsessed with colors, and loved how it would aid the color palette in this room. It speaks very nicely to the drums of the island unit, but also to the earthy pinks and reds going on in this room.”
Above: The wall sconce is an antique find by Gae Aulenti. The shutters are made custom from plywood which was stained to echo the oak cabinets.
Above: The stairway is painted in Apple (137) from Little Greene.
Above: The attic room belongs to MacNair’s son. The bed frame is designed to sit under the window and incorporate shelf and bedside space within it. It’s finished in a dark green wood stain. The rug is sourced from Emily’s House in London. The storage cabinets are custom and finished with Farrow & Ball London Stone No. 6 with sapele cabinet pulls.
Above: The bedside sconces are vintage sourced from The Peanut Vendor. The pair of chairs are Luigi Colani antiques reupholstered in pink cord fabric.
Above: “The curve is a way of getting a shower into the part of the room that’s high enough for one without bringing the entire bathroom out that far,” says MacNair.
Above: In her daughter’s room, MacNair opted for a sapele wood desk with a linoleum top paired with a red Ercol chair. The mirror is by Kristina Dam.
Above: The colorful rug was sourced from Emily’s House in London.
Above: The first floor family bathroom is designed in tadelakt and limestone. “I wanted the bathroom to give the feel of forest bathing. So, you know, green!” the designer says. “The sapele wood around the bath adds a nice bit of nature too.”
Above: The main bedroom is finished in Farrow & Ball Light Gray No. 17. The ceiling sconces are The White Porcelain Series by Michael Anastassiades. The cabinets are Douglas fir with stained handles.
Above: The wall sconces are the C1 by Vincent Van Duysen for FLOS.
Above: Custom floating bedside drawers are also designed in Douglas Fir with a custom stained handle.
Above: Throughout the project, color references include the work of Lucien Freud and designers such as Mary Goddard, Dries Van Noten, and Louise Trotter. The walls in the office are painted in Farrow & Ball Cooking Apple Green No. 32. The bookshelves are designed in sapele red. On the desk is a FLOS Bellhop Table in Brick Red.
Above: The black sideboard is designed by Jasper Morrison for Cappellini.
Above: A painting by artist Poppy Ellis on the living room memo. Living room walls are painted with Dulux DH Linen Color. The sofa is from B&B Italia and the coffee table is from Provision Store at London’s Maltby Street Market.
Above: The rug is the Technicolor Fleece by Peter Saville for Kvardat.
Above: I had re-upholstered a pair of Jindrich Halabala chairs many years ago with Villa Necchi’s ubiquitous green upholstery in my mind’s eye, so these were immediately a great fit for this house.
Above: “The curtain was partly about heat retention, but I also do use any old excuse to add a curtain. It gives a lot of softness to the look and feel of a space,” MacNair explains. “One side is a satin, pale steel-blue fabric by Dedar and the other is a rougher lilac linen from The Cloth Shop. Those colors together are a little bit unlikely, but also beautiful.”
Above:  A portrait of MacNair who got her start as a magazine journalist for 14 specializing in design and architecture.


For more from Jill MacNair, see our posts:



* Mill Lodge: A Colorful Cottage Escape for a Young Family by Morgan Goldberg

* The Butter Trend Takes Over Interiors: 13 Rooms Drenched in Pale Yellow

* 10 Easy Pieces: Architects’ Yellow Paint Picks


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