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A narrow, tapering house can support both domestic life and creative businesses when circulation is redesigned before decoration. In this west London project, the entrance was moved to the street, the old kitchen became a sequence of arrival and meeting spaces, storage was hidden behind curtains and a jib door, and awkward triangular rooms were assigned precise jobs.
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The result is not a repeatable building formula or a complete renovation specification. It is a detailed case study of how Nicholas Hodson-Taylor and tailor James MacAuslan fitted living, client-facing work, cutting, sewing, storage and entertaining into an old artists’ studio. Domino’s feature by Olivia Lidbury, photographed by Jasper Fry and published September 17, 2026, documents the decisions and materials.
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The property began as an old artists’ studio in west London. Its geometry was the central design problem: the front was extremely narrow and the plan widened into a quasi-triangle with a wedge at the rear. Hodson-Taylor described the building as having “no right angles at all,” a condition that affects where doors can swing, how furniture sits, and whether a room can serve more than one purpose.
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“It’s such a funny, odd-shaped house—there are no right angles at all,” Hodson-Taylor told Domino.
He saw the listing and immediately formed an emotional attachment. “I’m obsessed!” was his reaction, followed by the more cautious response from MacAuslan when shown the photographs: “I basically bought it in my head when I saw it online, but when I showed it to James, he was like: ‘Are you mad? This is ridiculous!’” Seeing the building in person changed the calculation. MacAuslan was drawn in part by the large kitchen window, while the couple began treating the irregular footprint as a set of opportunities rather than a defect.
Project measurements and documented facts
| Item | Reported detail | Qualification |
|---|---|---|
| Overall home | 1,200 square feet | Area reported by Domino in 2026 |
| Front width | Eight feet | Width reported by Domino in 2026 |
| Tailor’s enclosed workroom | 11 square feet | Area reported by Domino in 2026 |
| Feature | “Before & After: A Designer and a Tailor Make Sense of a Quasi-Triangular London Home” | By Olivia Lidbury; photography by Jasper Fry; published September 17, 2026 |
These are project measurements as reported in the feature, not an independently audited survey. They establish the scale of the challenge but do not provide a complete measured plan.
Moving the entrance changed the entire ground floor
The most consequential intervention was not a finish. Hodson-Taylor moved the front door from the side of the building to the street. That decision changed the sequence visitors experience and released the former kitchen to do several jobs at once.
The old kitchen became an entry, library, dining room and place for client meetings. Instead of asking a narrow arrival area to carry coats, books, meals and business conversations simultaneously, the new arrangement gives those activities a legible zone within one connected ground-floor composition. The plan therefore works through sequence: arrival first, then a room that can host a client or a meal, with the domestic and professional uses allowed to overlap without requiring a separate office.
The previous front door was converted into French doors opening to a small yard. That move preserves a relationship with the outside while allowing the new street entrance to perform the practical work of daily arrival. A ceiling notch remains as an original studio feature; it was once used to pass canvases upward. Retaining that trace gives the remodeled house a visible connection to its former use rather than treating the building as a blank shell.
Concealed storage keeps the narrow circulation usable
In a tapering plan, storage placed in the wrong location can become a permanent obstruction. The project responds by making storage read as part of the architecture. Along a skewed wall, curtains conceal shoes, coats and work swatches. The fabric can be drawn when the contents need to disappear and opened when access is required, without the visual weight or swing of a bank of conventional doors.
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- Tailored Vertical Storage: Stay organized with 6 upper compartments for stationery, decor or files, plus 3 lower shelves for books or storage boxes. The 3-level adjustable bottom shelf fits different item heights, keeping workspace clean and clutter-free
- Interactive Chalkboard Front: The built-in chalkboard allows you to jot down to-do lists, reminders, or family notes. Close the murphy desk to instantly hide visual clutter. Also works as a small breakfast bar or prep surface when life gets busy
- Safety & Durability: The craft desk with storage is made of P2-grade MDF with a smooth, easy-clean surface. Anti-tipping design adds everyday safety. Overall dimension: 38.5" W x 20" D x 60.25" H—designed for lasting use in compact homes
Opposite that wall, a jib door covered in undyed linen leads to MacAuslan’s small workroom. The door is designed to recede into the wall rather than announce a utility space. Hodson-Taylor explained the intention directly:
“I was desperate for somewhere to close off all of his machinery and fabrics in the same way that I house a lot of my chaos behind the drapery,” he said.
Inside, cork walls provide a surface for pinning inspiration, while white millwork supplies the workroom’s built-in storage and a light visual counterpoint to the cork. The arrangement separates machinery and fabrics from the main living areas when the door is closed, but keeps the workroom immediately available for the tailor’s business.
A living room that doubles as a cutting room and client setting
The living room carries another shared-use compromise. MacAuslan uses a high trestle table for cutting fabric, while a neighboring banquette seats clients. The table is therefore not an occasional craft surface hidden away from the house; it is part of the room’s everyday furniture and its professional function.
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A tall fireplace creates a vertical focal point in a room that also has to accommodate work. Its teal tiles were dry-laid before installation so the couple could check color variation. That preliminary layout is a small but important process detail: tile can shift noticeably from piece to piece, and arranging the pieces first lets the installer and designer control the final visual rhythm instead of discovering variation after the adhesive has set.
The room demonstrates a different answer to the work-versus-home problem than the enclosed workroom. Tailoring is partly concealed behind the jib door, but cutting remains visible and social. The banquette lets a client sit beside the work rather than waiting in a detached reception area.
Guest accommodation follows an indirect route
Guests can sleep on the sofa and reach a shower through what appears to be a tall kitchen cupboard. That passage leads through a pantry to the bathroom. The route uses an element that would normally be read as kitchen storage as a discreet threshold to bathing facilities, preserving the room’s visual order while still providing overnight guests with a practical path.
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This is a useful example of the project’s broader approach: circulation is not treated as leftover space. A cupboard-like door, a pantry and a bathroom are arranged as a sequence, allowing guest use without dedicating a large, permanently visible guest suite to an occasional need.
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The kitchen combines Howdens off-the-shelf cabinets with more distinctive surfaces. Derbyshire fossil limestone covers the main counter run, while a marble slab forms the top of a faceted island. The contrast lets a readily sourced cabinet system carry the storage and appliance functions while the stonework supplies the tactile and visual emphasis.
The island base shows how the project handled a budget limit without abandoning the intended effect. The budget did not extend to wrapping the base in stone, so Will Foster, identified in the feature as a decorative painter, painted a stone-like finish on it. The treatment creates a visual relationship with the marble top while using painted craft where a full stone enclosure was not feasible.
For a painter or decorative-finishes specialist, this is the clearest material lesson in the house: a convincing surface does not always require the material it imitates. The feature does not specify the paint system, preparation, number of coats or protective finish, so the painted island should be understood as a reported design choice, not a tested recipe.
Upstairs, the triangular room becomes a suite
The main triangular-shaped room upstairs was divided to create a bedroom suite and bathroom. Rather than forcing standard furniture into every corner, the plan gives the irregular perimeter distinct functions. A tub sits below the front window and is reached by travertine steps, turning the change in level into part of the bathing experience.
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“It’s not overlooked—you can be in the bath and count the stars,” Hodson-Taylor said of the tub’s position.
A vintage architectural plan chest was adapted into the bathroom vanity. The millworker reworked some drawers to create a few deeper compartments, preserving the chest’s character while making it more useful for bathroom storage. This is a precise form of adaptation: the object remains recognizable, but its internal proportions are altered for a new task.
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An awkward square became a dressing room. In a conventional rectangular plan, that shape might be dismissed as inefficient; here it receives a dedicated use that absorbs the geometry and removes pressure from the bedroom itself. The suite therefore relies on zoning rather than trying to make every room look conventionally proportioned.
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| Design question | Choice documented in the house | What that choice accomplishes |
|---|---|---|
| Where should arrival happen? | Street-facing entrance instead of the former side entrance | Lets the former kitchen become an entry, library, dining area and client-meeting space |
| How should daily clutter be handled? | Curtains over a skewed storage wall and a linen-covered jib door | Keeps coats, shoes, swatches and tailoring equipment out of sight when desired |
| How can a kitchen feel specific without every element being bespoke? | Off-the-shelf cabinets with fossil limestone, marble and a painted island base | Combines standard storage with selected stone and decorative-finishes features |
| Where can tailoring happen? | An enclosed workroom plus a high trestle table in the living room | Provides both a closable machinery area and a visible cutting surface beside client seating |
The feature does not present these as competing renovation schemes or claim that one approach is universally superior. They are the particular responses this couple used for this building, their work and their budget.
A practical way to study the project without copying it wholesale
The house is most useful as a decision framework for anyone dealing with an irregular footprint. The following questions stay close to what is actually documented.
1. Fix the arrival sequence before choosing finishes
Ask which door should establish the address and what the first room must do. In this case, relocating the entrance created the largest change in how the ground floor could operate. A finish applied to the old arrangement would not have solved the underlying circulation problem.
2. Assign every work activity a physical home
Separate activities that need privacy from those that benefit from being social. Machinery and fabrics can be closed behind a jib door, while fabric cutting can happen at a table beside a banquette. The distinction is more useful than labeling an entire room simply “office” or “studio.”
3. Decide what should disappear and what should remain visible
Curtains conceal domestic and work supplies; the trestle table and teal fireplace remain visible. This selective concealment prevents the house from becoming visually chaotic without erasing the occupants’ professions.
4. Mix ready-made infrastructure with authored surfaces
Cabinet boxes handle practical storage, while limestone, marble and painted effects give the kitchen its identity. The approach leaves room to spend on the surfaces that matter most to the composition rather than making every component custom.
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5. Test variable materials before fixing them in place
The teal tiles were dry-laid to inspect color variation. That principle can apply to any finish whose tone, veining or pattern changes from piece to piece: arrange the material first, then commit to installation once the intended distribution is clear.
6. Turn awkward geometry into a named zone
The dressing room and the bathroom’s stepped tub show two ways to give a difficult shape a purpose. Naming the zone—dressing, bathing, meeting, cutting—helps prevent irregular corners from becoming unplanned storage piles.
What this case study does not establish
Domino’s feature supplies selected dimensions, layout decisions and material descriptions, but it does not provide the home’s exact address, planning history, total renovation budget, a complete measured plan, product specifications, a full build sequence or a complete contractor roster. The named decorative painter is Will Foster, and the feature identifies a millworker who altered the plan-chest drawers, but it does not document every trade involved.
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Those limits matter if the project is being used as a renovation precedent. The documented value lies in the relationship between geometry, circulation, concealment, work habits and finish choices—not in an unreported price, specification or construction method.
The design verdict
This London home works because each awkward condition receives a deliberate role. The street entrance clarifies movement, the former kitchen becomes a flexible public room, curtains and a jib door absorb visual clutter, the living room supports both clients and cutting, and upstairs spaces turn triangular or square remnants into a suite, bath and dressing room. Standard cabinetry, selected stone and decorative painting then provide a finish strategy proportionate to the budget described in the feature.
It is a renovation shaped less by making the plan look conventional than by making every irregular edge useful.
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