CITY CHIC

By pooling their design skills, Chelsea Dixon and Robert Bühler now have a home with a distinctly Parisian feel

- SERENA FOKSCHANER

Chelsea Dixon and her husband Robert Lars Bühler were starting a family when they began to think of moving house. ‘I’d just come out of hospital after having our son Forest, when I spotted an ad for the house in an auction catalogue,’ says Chelsea. ‘It was a essentially a seven-bedroom bedsit in pretty ropy condition. But it was unusually large for a London townhouse and I’ve always loved this street so I knew we could do something special with it. A week later, Rob rang to tell me: “I’ve bought the house. Now we have to find the deposit!”’

Chelsea and Rob were instantly attracted to the scale of the house, which reminded them of the Parisian interiors they both love. Since the couple share a background in design – Chelsea is an interior designer and Robert is an architect – they were able to draw on their experience with their business Vada Collective, to create the template for a top-to-toe renovation. ‘I’ll do the spatial layout, working out where everything goes,’ says Chelsea, ‘and Rob will do the 3D design; it really helps with problem-solving early on in a project.’