City Living
Hove
Contemporary living right in the heart of the city
Situated in the leafy heart of Hove, this new build apartment is ideally situated in terms of access to Seven Dials and Brighton city centre, the bustling restaurants and cafes of Church Road, and the quiet solitude of St Anne’s Well Gardens. Our clients, who live in Amsterdam, approached us to help refurbish and furnish their apartment which they bought unseen in 2020. The apartment is to function as a home away from home for them, when they visit the UK on work trips. Being that the apartment has been newly built, many elements of it appealed to our clients in terms of functionality and providing a low-maintenance option for them as a second home. However, the apartment lacked personality and warmth, and was in need of an overhaul to bring it up to a high-end contemporary standard, and to achieve the modern aesthetic our clients were looking to achieve.
Modern aesthetic, contemporary design
This project kept our design team busy in 2021 and proved that we are able to work remotely, over Zoom and email, for clients who live abroad. Throughout this project, our clients were not able to travel to the UK owing to travel restrictions. Concepts and layout options were presented over Zoom, and all communication before, during and after the completion of the project has been undertaken over email and video call.
The refurbishment and furnishing of this apartment is a prime example of our fully comprehensive design service. With the clients based in The Netherlands throughout the refurbishment process, Pfeiffer Design coordinated the entire project on their behalf, liaising with all tradespeople required when it came to installation and being on site to accept, unpackage and install all necessary deliveries. This project was entirely designed and specified by our designers – right down to bed linen, towels, cutlery and glassware! The idea being that the clients will be able to board a plane from Amsterdam, arrive in Hove and have everything in place ready for their visit.
Our clients have very contemporary taste, and wanted to turn their apartment into a real design statement, and somewhere they will look forward to spending time, working, relaxing and enjoying all that Brighton and Hove has to offer. Our conceptual stage offered options and choices for the layout of the apartment and how best the space could be utilised as somewhere for work and relaxing and how best to bring a high-end modern, European-inspired aesthetic into a new build two-bedroom apartment in Hove. Our first port of call was to change the flooring throughout the apartment, utilising practical LVT laid in a contemporary herringbone format. One of the things our clients disliked most about the apartment was the existing kitchen, which, although inoffensive, comprised uninspiring white gloss cabinets. Being that the kitchen was very nearly brand new and unused, we decided to have it wrapped in a sleek matte grey instead of replacing it, which would have been not only costly but wasteful, too. This simple step totally transformed the Kitchen/Living/Dining Room into a more contemporary space, with added drama and depth, and far better suited to our clients’ taste and design ideal.
Bespoke upholstery and soft furnishings formed a key part of our design remit. We designed and made soft wave-headed linen curtains to soften the modern industrial aesthetic, a contemporary fluted timber headboard wall in the Principal Bedroom, and a bespoke panelled headboard, incorporating switches and sockets to sit behind the bed in the Secondary Bedroom. And, of course, the scheme was completed by an abundance of neutral, textural scatter cushions, designed and handmade by our seamstress, Henny, in Eastbourne.
