It all started with a dining table. A great big heavy wooden Victorian thing that sat in the living-room bay window of Drew and Frances Wallace's elegant, quintessentially Edinburgh semi-detached period townhouse on a quiet leafy street in Morningside. It had been the family's home for 30 years, and the table was a happy hub of activity, around which the couple and their three daughters would assemble daily for meals, with friends and relatives joining them at Christmas, all crammed in.
But, as Drew puts it, "you need to evolve". As the Wallace girls grew up and started drifting away, leaving the house to just their parents and dog Harvey, Drew and Frances decided in 2019 that it was time to do one of two things. Either sell up and downsize, or start sorting out their tired-looking but still beloved home - beginning with their cluttered and gloomy living room, with that space-hogging table (shifted there by necessity some years previously, when the dining room was sacrificed to form a fourth bedroom).
That's when the Wallaces dropped in on venerable Edinburgh interior design studio Jeffreys and had a chat with Georgina Fraser - then a designer, today Jeffreys' managing director, after she bought the business in 2021 together with her business partner Jo Aynsley.
"They said, 'Oh, we think we'd like to do up the living room a little bit," Georgina recalls of that first consultation. "They had a space that was trying to do so much. It's a generous-sized house, but when you break it down into maybe five adults in there, trying to use that living room for dining and watching TV, and then also having loads of family around sometimes, it was too much."
Esta historia es de la edición July - August 2024 de Homes & Interiors Scotland.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor ? Conectar
Esta historia es de la edición July - August 2024 de Homes & Interiors Scotland.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor? Conectar
Escape BOATH HOUSE
An inspirational Georgian manor house in the north-east offers sanctuary to artists, poets and the curious of spirit
Escape THE LOOKOUT
Sun-drenched interiors, right on the beach - it's hard to believe this is Scotland
"It still feels like home. Just nicer"
The owners of this house in Edinburgh didn't intend to give it a complete makeover, but once they started they just couldn't stop
A SCOTTISH LOVE STORY
You need passion to persevere through a lengthy restoration project. Thankfully for this rambling old lodge in Highland Perthshire, its new owners were already head over heels
CLEAN AND POLISH
Ten years in the making, this one-time dental surgery in Portobello has been reshaped as an elegant, practical family home
MEET THE MAKER RACHEL MACLELLAN
You might think the process is purely creative, but designing knitted textiles requires a deep understanding of geometry and pattern calculations. It is intricate and often mathematical. I have learned that knitting demands a constant balance between artistry and engineering. Creating a new textile involves not only selecting colours and yarns but also considering the tensile strength, elasticity and drape of the material. That way, I ensure the final product is both aesthetically pleasing and functional. To me, this blend of creativity and technical precision is a fascinating aspect of knitted textile design.
IN THE KITCHEN AT PARTIES
It's all in the details for this slick and multifunctional entertainment space
JUST A HINT OF PINK
This family-orientated Georgian kitchen gets an upgrade in both footprint and finish
BEHIND CLOSED DOORS
Beauty and the best of Scotland on the shores of Loch Ness
LAURA THOMAS
The environmentalist has become a very successful entrepreneur whose products are stocked by Scotland's best hotels