I Love the Feel of Light and Space

For digital agency owner, Jemima Garthwaite, a Victorian terraced house offered the ideal chance to create a light-filled home filled with eclectic furniture.

- Danielle Woodward

Stepping through the front door of Jemima Garthwaite’s Victorian terraced house in Hackney, east London, your eye is immediately drawn to the light-filled windows at the back that overlook the garden. ‘When I was planning the extension, I wanted to have a view into the garden from the front of the house,’ says Jemima. ‘I love living in the city, but also crave the openness of the countryside, and having a feeling of light and space was crucial.’

Together with her architect friend, Tom Kaneko, Jemima knocked through the walls between the two ground-floor rooms and reclaimed the outdoor space to the rear and side of the house, to create a spacious kitchen and a cosy office area sandwiched in between. ‘I studied architecture but I’m not an architect,’ Jemima laughs. ‘I had the confidence and knowledge from my studies, but shaping the space was intuitive; I still needed Tom’s skill and practicality to show me what was possible, and what was just me wanting to do more than my limited budget allowed!’