Seasonal Style

Helen and Philip welcome us into their Lisburn home at Christmas, which is full of seasonal charm as they prepare to celebrate the festivities with their three young children.

This new build Georgian style house in Lisburn has been home to Helen and Philip for two and half years and they’ve now had the chance to enjoy two Christmases here with Heidi the dog, their children Adeline and Lucas, and this year will be the first for baby Cohen.

Once inside the front door straight in front of you is a feature staircase that leads upstairs to four bedrooms, two of which have ensuites, and a large family bathroom. Back downstairs, to the right there is a formal living room which is still to be finished and to the left a door that leads into the main open-plan kitchen/living/dining area.

‘We spend all day, every day in this part of the house,’ explains Helen. ‘It is the perfect space for the whole family and I just love all of the natural light that streams in from the orangery.’

Within this open-plan space the family’s dining table divides the kitchen space from the living space in the orangery. What you can’t see is the children’s playroom which is cleverly hidden away behind a secret door in the kitchen.

‘I love things to be symmetrical,’ explains Helen. From our Georgian exterior to the design of the kitchen, I’m all about the symmetry! I knew that I wanted a shaker style kitchen. I feel it is a design that not only suits the style of our home, but which is also the most timeless. Our kitchen designers helped me to achieve the symmetry I was after in here and suggested using the concealed doorway to the left of the hob which leads into the children’s playroom. It’s great that they have this space and then I can simply shut the door when they’ve gone to bed at the end of the day,’ says Helen.