Plot Twist: Stripes Keep This Maximalist Edwardian Home From Looking Too Busy

As the busy walls in Sarah Corbett-Winder’s London home prove, anything meaningful can be considered art. From framed paintings to splatter plates to even her son’s lone Boxfresh shoe (it’s a long story—the other one disappeared without a trace), each room boasts its very own living gallery wall. “When we go somewhere, we always try to bring something back that we can put up. It’s a nice way of capturing moments and memories that you can see all the time,” explains Sarah, a stylist and founder of the womenswear brand Kipper.

This maximalist outlook extends to every corner of her and her husband Ned’s Edwardian home, where they live with their children, Lyon, Nancy, and Celeste. But Sarah is conscious not to let her space feel overwhelmed by trends (in their last place, the couple had been wooed by Pinterest-influenced flashes of blue and geometric patterns). “I got bored of it really, really quickly,” she admits. For this next chapter, “I wanted it to feel timeless, but also our own, which is so hard because there is so much inspiration everywhere.” 

To avoid making the same mistake twice, she chose a classic backdrop for her 2,700-square-foot home: stripes. Wide blue stripes, hand-painted by artist Lucy Mahon, adorn the spare bedroom. Up in the eaves, where the couple’s bedroom was initially beige, the walls and ceiling are wrapped in variegated wallpaper from Farrow & Ball. “We were worried we’d wake up feeling a bit ill, but actually it’s really cozy and nestlike,” says Sarah.

Even the kids have gotten in on the funhouse vibes. Swathed in extra-large, tentlike lines, Lyon’s bedroom practically feels like the circus, especially with all the stuffed creatures lingering about, while Nancy enjoys the palest of pinks with a side of florals (her matching headboard, pelmets, and curtains remind Sarah of the home she grew up in).

Relying on grounding, earthy colors like mustard yellow and aubergine also prevents the art-filled home from looking too busy. Setting the scene with a cohesive palette throughout means Sarah could get away with moving things around. For instance she took leftover cabinet moldings from the kitchen and stuck them in her closet to use as handbag shelving. “I’m all about keeping surplus, because you never know when you might be able to use it,” she says. This rule applied to a marble sink the couple mismeasured (twice!) for the kitchen. Instead of chucking it in the dumpster, they turned their fail into a liquor-filled tray next to the pantry.

The couple wanted this house to feel grown-up, and that’s the feeling you get in the sitting room, where they added new picture molding to the walls for a sense of grandeur. The botanical prints, sourced by Ned years ago at an antiques fair, serendipitously fit within the proportions. Meanwhile, they reimagined the settees from their previous home by simply changing the fabric on the seat cushions (and not on the frames). “It’s one of my favorite tricks because it gives a sofa another lease on life without having to spend a fortune on upholstery,” says Sarah.

New visitors are almost always struck by the sense of stepping into another world. “Our aim was to create a home where you come in and forget about everything,” says Sarah. And while the house is packed to the brim with books, china fruits, and porcelain dogs, the fashion designer points out that everything is meticulously organized.

“There might be piles of trinkets, but everything has its place. There’s no cupboard full of stuff that doesn’t have a home,” she says. She finds joy in tinkering and moving objects around, creating new vignettes in the process: “To me, a house is like a piece of art; you’re constantly adding or taking away.”

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