Cadogan Gardens
VICTORIAN MANSION DUPLEX APARTMENT IN THE HEART OF CHELSEA
The Brief
Our Brief was to update the lighting for the owners of this stunning duplex Victorian Mansion block in the heart of Chelsea, enhancing the lovely Victorian features but also to help with the quality of light as the apartment had limited natural light and was quite dark. The existing lighting was very dated with an old control system and the clients hated it.
The Challenge
The main challenge was our low budget. The client wanted to keep cost to a bare minimum, so we found ourselves retrofitting some existing fittings with newer Led lamps. This is always more complicated and time consuming as we need to make sure all new lamps work with old fittings and ensure compatibility with drivers and the control system.
THE Solution
We designed a ‘classic contemporary’ lighting scheme which made the whole apartment seem brighter and more spacious. We did this by drawing the architectural features with light, specifying picture lights with good optics and thereby showcasing their fantastic art collection and by adding layers of light such as coffer ceiling lighting, uplights, floor washers and directional downlights; washing the walls and highlighting the lovely limestone.
We used a Rako wired lighting and blind control system throughout as the client wanted a distinctive ‘layered lighting effect’ which thus enabled the numerous circuits to be combined in two or three scenes for each of the main rooms.
The Final Result
We restored this elegant Victorian mansion apartment back to its former glory, with a contemporary twist. The client was very happy with the result.
Testimonial
"Suzy was extremely helpful in terms of recommending some tasteful additions to our lighting including floor lights, up-lighting, lighting placements and other key advice that - at the end of the day - really added to the aesthetics as far as the finished product so to speak. We are very happy with the way the lights look throughout our apartment and it made the refurbishment all worthwhile. As far as the light controllers, which mattered a lot to me, we opted for RAKO over Crestron, Lutron and others. RAKO is less expensive but has an excellent app and is very functional. RAKO also gets good review, so we didn’t feel that we were sacrificing anything. We have had a few glitches with the programming (a RAKO issue) but this is getting sorted out now. I would recommend Suzy for her experience, noting that lighting is inevitably the key to making an apartment, villa or house look its best."
TIM HALL.