A Home Shaped by Art

Designed by Luiza Gibb

Colour, art and memory run through every room of Luiza Gibb’s home. In a leafy pocket of west London, this semi-detached period house has something of the English countryside about it: wisteria winding across the exterior, roses and lavender taking turns in the garden, their changing colours recalling the Yorkshire landscape in which she grew up. Inside, however, the mood is altogether more unexpected.

As head of Flat Space Art & Interiors Gallery, Luiza has spent her career surrounded by artists. For her, decorating a house begins not with furniture or paint, but with art. “A lot of people buy their art after the project,” she explains. “For me, it was always going to be before, because it’s the basis of my inspiration.”

That approach has shaped a home of remarkable individuality, where each room unfolds as its own composition. Colour is abundant but carefully connected, with copper, gold and burnished tones appearing throughout. “My theory is that each room should have its own story,” says Luiza. “And each room should start with either provocative or evocative artworks to form the base.”

When she first encountered the house, there was plenty to reconsider. Well lived in, it required a comprehensive renovation, from electrics and plumbing to new windows, structural work and a new roof. The rear was opened to the garden with Crittall-style doors and the original fireplace returned to stone. The bathrooms required particular attention: for Luiza, her three daughters and a lively household of animals and guests, the existing single first-floor bathroom was never going to suffice.

The renovation ultimately transformed the property into a five-bedroom, five-bathroom home. Luiza remained closely involved throughout, approaching even the most practical decisions through the same artistic lens. “For me, nothing is just functional,” she says. “It has to be visually beautiful, it has to tell a story, evoke emotion, and it has to flow from room to room.”

Nowhere is that philosophy more vividly expressed than in the principal bathroom. During a visit to the Louvre with her daughter Scarlett, Luiza encountered an early sixteenth-century painting depicting a Venetian delegation arriving in Damascus. Rich with architecture, ceremony and cultural exchange, the painting immediately suggested an entire room. “I knew in that very moment the scene was perfect for my bathroom,” she recalls.

Luiza later discovered that Pierre Frey had translated the painting into a panoramic wallpaper. What had previously been a plain office became something far more transportive, a richly layered interior in which the boundaries between artwork and decoration begin to dissolve.

At its centre sits a freestanding Drummonds copper bath, treated almost as a piece of sculpture within the scene. Its warm, burnished surface plays against the mural’s intricate architecture and deep pigments, while the unlacquered brassware will gradually develop a natural patina with use. Luiza imagined the room as somewhere to retreat into the picture itself, surrounded by an imagined world of Venice, Damascus and centuries of trade and travel.

From the wallpaper, the rest of the palette followed instinctively. Farrow & Ball’s Picture Gallery Red intensifies the theatricality of the room, while chequerboard tiles in deep burgundy and warm stone continue its Venetian references underfoot. Kumquat trees bring a flash of living green, and decorative Venetian vases depicting a king and queen add another layer to the room’s storytelling.

The effect is opulent without feeling formal. Historical references mingle with influences from Luiza’s own life and travels, giving the room a distinctly personal character. Having lived in Eastern Europe for 13 years and travelled extensively through her work in the art world, she describes many of the decisions in the house as “the subconscious becoming conscious”.

That visual language continues elsewhere. In the kitchen, the colours of a painting by Czech artist Pavel Roučka informed the cabinetry, with artisan tiles and richly veined marble adding further layers. Copper and gold-toned lighting echoes the warmth of the Drummonds fittings, while the adjoining sitting room takes a more playful turn. A fantastical mural depicts a watchful panther and three monkeys engaged in various pursuits, from navigating by compass to drinking cocktails and eating popcorn.

For all its exuberance, there is a distinct coherence to the home. The rooms are not designed to match, but speak to one another through recurring colours, materials and ideas. In the bathroom, Drummonds’ traditional craftsmanship provides a grounding presence among the artwork, pattern and ornament, the burnished copper and unlacquered brass lending weight and warmth to the richly layered scheme. “If you have vision, you have everything,” says Luiza. Here, that conviction is expressed room by room, in a home where art is not the finishing touch, but the beginning of the story.

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