Interior designer Pernille Lind creates a warm sanctuary in a Victorian terrace

Having rented in west London for eight years, interior designer Pernille Lind longed for a radical change of scenery. She had bought her first apartment in her native Copenhagen 11 years ago and dreamed of a London home to fully call her own, somewhere neighbourly, green and charismatic. It was over a late summer lunch on Church Street in 2020, that she felt a blossoming connection to Stoke Newington. From there, a fortunate chain of Google searches led her to buy a one bedroom garden flat on a Victorian terrace, close to Clissold Park. “I felt invigorated. It wasn’t really alien, but it was alien enough to almost make me feel like I had moved country, and that was all I needed” she recalls. The neighbourhood mood, where “everyone is on a bike”, reminded her of home, bohemian, yet quaint and down to earth.

Eight months later, floors, millwork and doors were being sanded, and walls patched with tester colours in preparation for a full cosmetic refurb. “Having a space of your own, where you can choose every single detail, that’s real luxury to me” Pernille continues. “Space for objects that have been hidden away in storage and everything laid out as you like, to me that’s more luxurious than going on two holidays a year”. With one bedroom and one bathroom, the flat is spacious and airy, with minimal adjustments from its first life as the downstairs of a multi-level, late 19th-century home. There’s a distinguished polarity to the natural light sources, pouring through a large sash window in the living room and another in the kitchen. A few paces from the kitchen sink, a door leads to a long garden–an essential in Pernille’s original search. “There are high ceilings and light all the way through the space, it feels like I just live on the ground floor of a house” she adds. As the only “major surgery”, a disused kitchen fireplace was opened up for a large range-style cooker, its alcove plated with an Italian Arabescato marble backsplash. The kitchen was painted in Farrow & Ball's ‘Cord’, a soft greyish yellow to compliment a honey hued wooden floor.

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Pernille’s heritage features heartily in her home, her Danish and Thai roots manifesting in a sentimental gathering of family heirlooms, artwork and furniture. On the back kitchen wall, a collection of her paternal grandmother’s recipes hang in a neat grid, float framed in walnut and backed with raw linen, perfectly preserved from their creation in wartime Denmark. A sculpted Buddha and pendant are pride of place at her bedside, a tribute to her maternal ancestry and time spent in Bangkok. “Home is where my belongings are” she reflects. As an interior and furniture designer, Pernille's astuteness for respecting a property’s architectural origins rings particularly true in this Victorian home. "When you’re given a space with history, I feel it’s important to be authentic” she explains, and here, her fondness for Scandinavian mid-modern styles presents in a way that accentuates, rather than dominates the space. “The kitchen for example, is painted… that’s not a Scandinavian thing, that would often be all wood, maybe oak”. Naturally gravitating towards a strong use of natural timber and woodwork, she instead chose to bring out these elements in bespoke wardrobes, cabinets and chairs.

Among the earthy palette, Pernille wove linear patterns and a generous amount of contrasting dark tones into the scheme. She laughs “I really love anything striped or geometric… it’s become a thing!”. The living room floor is stained black to create an almost mirror-like sheen; cleverly bouncing light off the Farrow & Ball ‘Wimborne White’ walls and back into the room; a striking juxtaposition from the mellow, south-facing kitchen. A sofa by George Smith was upholstered in a chunky striped Pierre Frey fabric and sits opposite an original stone fireplace–a union of colour and tonality in the bright room. Modestly small but comfortable, the bathroom has all the charm of an antique chessboard. Black and white tiles encompass the bath, while brass hardware from Lefroy Brooks gives the space an Art Deco feel. “I wanted to have fun and play with it, the bathroom is always a moment to create something special and unique” Pernille explains. “I find that it’s a space where people always expect the least, but you can give the most”.

Crediting form and function as a Scandinavian-inspired ethos, Pernille brought several elements of her international design work into her own new home, subtly mixing materials for optimum balance - “I wanted it to be calm, luxurious looking but not necessarily over the top”, she explains. This ethos is the same of her design studio business; Pernille is one half of the furniture company Lind + Almond, shared with her partner Richy Almond. Her bed is a modification of an original they had designed for a hotel project in Denmark and features soft curves of oak and a rattan headboard. There is a deep sense of sanctuary in each room and it’s clear that in this home, comfort is found as much in plush fabrics and furniture, as in culture and ancestral treasures.