Stylist Rose Forde and her husband, Ummar Rashid, with Bowie the miniature poodle
(Picture: Juliet Murphy)When people tell their home-buying back story, it often starts with grim recollections of what an absolute wreck the place once was. But when stylist and consultant Rose Forde first saw this one-bedroom flat in Crouch Hill, north London, it was already looking pristine and serene — all pale neutrals and pared-back minimalism.
Owned by a pair of Italian architects, the couple had poured many years of careful thought into making the most of this modest space; just 485 square feet on the second floor of a Victorian house.
“Although it was smaller than other places I’d viewed, it just functioned really well,” Forde recalls.
Buying solo
She was battle-scarred from two previous attempts to buy a first home, which both fell through at the 11th hour.
“It was soul destroying. Although I was renting a great place in Camden with a friend, I was starting to feel like I was trapped in an endless rental loop. But I clicked with the vendors here and that gave me the confidence to try again — there was a good energy about the whole thing.”
Forde, who has just launched an art and fashion consultancy called Studio Paradiso, took a pragmatic approach to flat-hunting. “I realised that your first home is rarely your forever home. I definitely didn’t have time for a project, I wanted somewhere that was already aesthetically beautiful so I could put my stamp on it out of desire, rather than necessity.”
This flat met those needs perfectly and nailed the other items on her wish-list, too, such as great views, nearby green space and an easy commute to her Finsbury Park office.
“I loved having a good view in my last place and I didn’t want to lose that. Here you’re up among the treetops looking at lots of sky,” she says, gesturing through one of the flat’s tall sash windows on to acres of blue beyond.
“I’m 10 minutes from a walk in Highgate Woods, and Crouch Hill itself feels cool and creative.”
Aside from Bowie, her miniature poodle, Forde was a solo buyer. “I’ve worked hard to build up my own career and financial security. I’ve had my own company for 10 years and it was important to me, as a woman, to achieve being a homeowner.”
She bought the flat for £425,000, just as Covid made its appearance. “It was a weird and daunting time to be buying on my own, but I took a lot of advice and decided that I really didn’t want to miss out on this place.”
A brilliant blueprint
Before they left, the Italian architects dotted the flat with a plethora of Post-it Notes to welcome Forde to her new home, with handy hints on what to store where and the best cleaning products for the marble tiles.
These were especially detailed in the simple white kitchen, which lines one wall of the main living space. “It’s timeless and has been so cleverly planned, with a concealed draining board over the sink and sockets hidden under cabinets.
“We’re not actually that keen on period properties, except for the beautiful tall windows, but this place feels clean and contemporary. It has been configured for modern living.”
Nonetheless, as a creative, Forde longed to make her own mark on the flat. “They devised a brilliant blueprint and I just adapted it to suit me.”
Limited by the lockdowns, she postponed plans to open up the main kitchen-dining-living room on to the generous hall beyond. “I love entertaining friends and wanted to create a more fluid space for socialising.”
Instead, she concentrated on adding pops of colour, ordering a Ligne Roset Togo sofa and ottoman in high-impact red “to punctuate the space”. She mixed her new buys in with favourite pieces like her vintage Danish dining table and sculptural string chairs.
“In a small flat, everything has to be beautiful but functional, too, like my Isokon bookcase.”
Forde has an art world background and has consulted for Frieze Art Fair and her friend’s gallery, Cob, but fashion was her first love.
Today she is at the vanguard of image consultancy, working with many of Britain’s biggest acting talents. “I’m part of a little movement that’s keen to push the red carpet forwards, to reflect contemporary conversations about fashion.”
She approached her flat’s interior in the same way she would a client’s look: “I mood-boarded everything, that way I could see how the colours worked together and whether the red sofa would work with the oak table.
“That said, I think I’m better at fashion than I am at homes. This project has made me realise that putting an interior together is hard.”
A new twist in the plot
Around the time she was buying the flat and the world was locking down, Forde began a new relationship with architect Ummar Rashid, which quickly blossomed and the couple married last summer.
Forde persuaded her new husband to sell his own, more spacious two-bedroom flat in Clapton to move in with her. “I couldn’t bring myself to give up my new flat so soon and I wanted to make this place work for both of us.”
Unsurprisingly, Rashid — who works with multi-award-winning practice Allford Hall Monaghan Morris — came with his own highly developed sense of aesthetics.
While Forde loves dashes of colour, warm wood and tactile textures, Rashid takes a more graphic approach to interiors and design, favouring simple shapes, clean lines and a reduced material palette.
“His look has a harder edge, while mine is softer and more fun. But the mix works because we share a modernist point of view and both love classic design, like our Eames side tables.”
Rashid moved in during the work-from-home era, “so the flat needed to adapt once again,” recalls Forde. Suddenly the once-superfluous hallway had a new purpose as an office, kitted out with Rashid’s Vitsoe shelving system, now on its fourth house move.
“It’s a perfect example of beautiful functional design and we love the way it can be added to and reconfigured. It’s the same with the Togo sofa, it’s modular so when we move to a bigger place, we can add more pieces. I’d ordered it before Ummar moved in, but it’s his favourite sofa, too. Although possibly not in red,” says Forde with a grin.
Together they’ve spent about £3,000 on the place, including a new boiler. The biggest changes have been in the bedroom where the pair chose a rich teal for the walls and added shelving to display favourite pieces.
“The flat is so light and bright, we wanted to create something really cosy in here.”
They opted for minimal changes in the marble-tiled bathroom: “The architects paid a lot of attention to this room, taking space from the bedroom to allow for a longer bath in front of the window. In summer you look out over green trees, I love lying in the bath with a podcast on, it’s a beautiful space to relax in.”
The flat has adapted to cater to a single girl, then a newly married couple and it continues to deliver.
“We love the place and it works for us at the moment but we are thinking about the next life stage, where we’ll hopefully grow as a family. I’m more open to doing a ‘project’ now, it definitely helps that Ummar is an architect. But we would love to get a house and still hold on to this flat, to keep it as my little achievement.”
