Interior Design
London
Decorating Ideas for Summer Home
Howark Design - an Interior Design studio based in West London Founded by Saskia Howard and James Arkoulis, who are known for creating interiors that are expressive, distinctive and inviting.
Every summer as a boy, James would go to his grandparents’ summer home on the sleepy Greek island of Serifos. The house, which is now his, had been in his grandmother’s family for more than 100 years. In renovating the home in 2019, the design brief was to modernise the house, but in a way that felt nothing had really happened, so that they retained the essence of the family Greek home. Their specific house had a lot of history and character that came from mid-century, and it was important to him to keep to that style.
"A seafront home with over a hundred years of history that required a full and sensitive refurbishment. We worked with local craftspeople to restore original features like the beautiful floor tiles and combined antiques and more modern finds to create a fresh and layered look fitting of its island location."
In the re-design, James and Saskia sourced antiques and art from galleries, vintage shops, and flea markets to fit the style and character of the house, such as a wooden day bed in the sitting room and added lots of bold prints from Indian block-print bed canopies to a stripy sink skirt, and a mix of new cushions for the sofa, to which they also added a skirt. James and Saskia worked with local craftspeople to restore original features like the beautiful floor tiles and combined antiques and more modern finds to create a fresh and layered look fitting of its island location. Even the invisible jobs, such as repairing the roof, were tackled in a sensitive way that honoured the home’s roots.
