SPARKING JOY

Rachel Gilbert and Tom Williams’s elegantly minimalist restored Art Deco home has been a labour of love.

- Elle McClure

When fashion designer Rachel Gilbert and her husband, former TV presenter Tom Williams, bought their four-bedroom Mosman, Sydney, home at auction back in 2015, it was far from its original Art Deco glory. “It had green walls and yellow fireplaces!” Gilbert recalls with obvious horror. Renovating it to some thing more in line with its original aesthetic was a painstaking 18-month process, one that Gilbert — not unwillingly — was heavily involved in.

The couple made sizeable extensions to the house, including the entranceway, upstairs bedroom and rear living area, knocking out several walls and relocating the kitchen in the process — rendering the house near unrecognisable from when they purchased it. “We wanted to keep with the Art Deco vibe, so even the extensions we made were true to [that] character,” Gilbert says. “I thought I’d get an interior designer to help me with it,” she adds, “but I ultimately decided to do it myself.” The fashion industry stalwart admits she can be a tad obsessive: “I like things the way I like them.” But, she adds, “I really enjoyed the interior side of things — it was such a different creative outlet for me. I enjoyed it more than [designing] fashion, for a while.”

It wasn’t without stress, Gilbert says. “It was an intense time, the girls were one and two [the couple’s daughters, Sloane, now four, and Storm, now five], I was running the business [her eponymous label], and was really hands-on with all the builders and managed contractors. It was full-on.”