CALM IN THE CITY

The urban semi that Sarah Heritage and Sid Vijayakumar call home is an oasis that puts you at ease instantly

- JO LEEVERS

When Andrew Griffiths embarked on the redesign of this family home, he started by asking the owners how they wished to feel when they walked through their front door. Their answer? ‘They wanted a sense of warmth and ease.’ As a result, Andrew put together a carefully calibrated mix of textures that creates a sense of calm, from rustic herringbone flooring to a wall of textured tiles that catches the light in a beguiling way.

As the founder of interior design studio A New Day, Andrew took care to tune into the needs of his clients, Sarah Heritage, a lawyer, and Sid Vijayakumar, who works in tech. The couple moved here from a smaller apartment with their two young children, Luc and Elin, so this home represented an exciting new stage in their lives. In anticipation, Sarah had gathered lots of ideas, which she and Andrew then refined, selecting ones that would work with the architecture of this Victorian home. ‘I strived for a style that would suit the bones of the house and the ways in which Sarah and Sid wanted to use their spaces,’ he says.