Kate Hawkins is a painter who runs the contemporary art-inspired wallpaper business, CommonRoom, which works with artists such as Goshka Macuga and Kate Owens to design conceptual wallpapers that challenge and excite. Ever intrigued by the role of the viewer and the ways in which they influence the work, Kate’s passions spill over into painting as well, which has her creating works for various galleries from her home studio in Dalston, East London where she lives with her husband, Sam, and their six-month-old baby, Hector.
For many moons prior, Kate lived around the corner in a warehouse apartment, and grew to love the area, which is home to many of her friends as well. So when their current home became available — while it wasn’t the place of their dreams and needed lots of work — they thought it had potential and would keep them close to their friends and local neighborhood digs they had come to love. At the time they moved in, one of Sam’s best friends was living with them, and together with help from friends, they renovated the house, bit by bit. One of their first projects was installing a shower (that’s right, there wasn’t one to begin with), along with plastering over the artex on the 70s ceilings. Reflecting back, Kate has fond memories and laughs thinking about some of their renovation tales: there was the time she made the silly decision to build a step for the washstand, only to change her mind later, which led to re-tiling the bathroom floor; their entertaining plasterer (and spoken-word poet) who would rap as he worked; or the embarrassment that followed when Kate attempted to install shelving in an effort to teach her younger cousin about DIY, only to drill right through the wall. Kate laughs, “Unsurprisingly, I don’t think she’s done much DIY since!”
Though many of the design decisions were made on the fly and based on intuition, Kate and Sam achieved their goal of fostering a space that is warm and comfortable, while allowing Kate to make a mess in a studio behind closed doors. By mixing pieces that span various eras with modern renovations, the late 70s aspects of the home come together with their inherited antiques and art deco pieces, giving off a transitional, eclectic feel. Paired with treasured objects, such as the working furniture drawings done by Kate’s grandmother, a furniture designer in the 1930s, their 900-square-foot space is one they are proud to call home. –Sabrina
via Design*Sponge http://ift.tt/1Lg0V7B From Sabrina Smelko
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