Hampstead Garden Suburb: Arts & Crafts Home Interior

A listed Arts & Crafts house in the heart of Hampstead Garden Suburb required sensitive interior redecoration. The property, designed by one of the original Garden Suburb architects, featured extensive original oak panelling in the hallway and dining room, hand-made clay tiles around fireplaces, and lime-plastered walls throughout. The Hampstead Garden Suburb Trust imposes strict controls on listed properties, and all paint specifications required advance approval. Previous well-meaning owners had applied modern vinyl emulsion to the lime plaster walls, trapping moisture and causing widespread damp patches and blown plaster.

Key Challenges

We worked with the Hampstead Garden Suburb Trust's advisory panel to develop an approved paint specification before commencing any work. The incompatible vinyl emulsion was carefully removed from all lime plaster walls using gentle steam stripping — never chemical strippers that could damage the lime substrate. Damaged plaster sections were repaired using traditional lime putty mixed with local sand to match the original texture. We specified Earthborn Claypaint for all plastered walls — a zero-VOC, breathable clay-based paint that is fully compatible with lime plaster and carries the EU Ecolabel. The colour palette was drawn from Earthborn's heritage range, with Freckle in the principal rooms and Gregory's Den in the bedrooms. For the original oak panelling, we carefully removed the old varnish using a combination of gentle heat and fine hand scraping, revealing the beautiful quarter-sawn grain beneath. The bare oak was treated with Osmo Polyx-Oil in Raw finish — a natural hardwax oil that feeds and protects the timber while maintaining its natural appearance and allowing it to breathe.

Project Approach

Services Provided