Houzz Tour: Edinburgh Apartment Goes From Bland to Bold

“The flat was perfectly average when I bought it,” says interior designer Jessica Buckley of her now-decidedly-unaverage two-bedroom Georgian flat in Edinburgh’s New Town, Scotland. “It was in a decent state but looked very early ’90s — in other words, plain and nondescript. But that’s why I bought it. I’m a designer. I wanted something I could pull apart and redesign completely.”

And that she has. The 19th-century flat now has a new kitchen (and a new kitchen location), a new bathroom, a relocated powder room and a smaller shower room — to make space for a new laundry area — and a glamorous, colorful and interesting interior full of Buckley’s favorite fabrics, secondhand gems and finds from a well-traveled life.

Houzz at a Glance
Who lives here: Interior designer Jessica Buckley and her partner, James, a plumber, plus their 2 cocker spaniels, Ruby and Skye
Location: Edinburgh, Scotland
Era built: 1860–1870
Size: 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms
Designer: Jessica Buckley

“With the budget I had, I could have bought something a bit bigger,” Buckley says, “but I wanted to decorate it really well and to make it really luxurious and comfortable. I think a lot of people buy the biggest place they can, but I wanted to make sure there was enough money in the pot to do the flat as I wanted to.

“It was also to be a showpiece for my business. I was a fledgling interior designer and wanted something that would show people what I could do. So I had to practice what I was preaching and go for it with bold color and pattern.”


Interior design often starts with a piece that sets the theme or color scheme for the entire home. In Buckley’s case there were two starting points. First, a crush on Neisha Crosland’s Zebra fabric, which now covers her sofa. “I’d seen it upholstered on a showroom chair when I was still studying,” Buckley says. She thought, “One day I’m going to use this amazing fabric on something!”

Secondly, she’d been eyeing a deep blue grass cloth wallpaper by Phillip Jeffries for a while and decided she had to have it for the living room. So with the sofa and wall covering picked, the rest of the flat evolved around them.

This turquoise side table complements the darker blues gorgeously. “I had a couple of the vases around the flat already, but hadn’t thought to put them together until I found the table online for 20 pounds [about $31],” she says. “I just love that color!” The others she picked up over time in thrift shops.


Pink is another key color in the living room, and Buckley had the dining chairs reupholstered in dusty rose. “Chinese Chippendale or chinoiserie chairs were popular in the 17th century,” she says. “They came back into fashion in Palm Beach and Florida in the 1950s and have had a bit of a resurgence again. I found a set of six online and had them painted white —the other two are in the kitchen.”

A brighter pink sings out from the end wall in the form of a print by wallpaper designer Kirath Ghundoo. The artwork below it is a Damien Hirst spot print. Buckley disguised a “not particularly stylish” table with fabric.

Ticking fabric: Ian Mankin



The artwork above the fireplace is a box-framed piece of Aztec suzani made in Uzbekistan. “I used to live in central Asia,” Buckley says, “and this was a gift when I was there.”

Although there’s a lot going on in this room visually, Buckley has nailed the delicate art of pattern clashing by sticking to a palette of colors dotted all over the room in different configurations.

The only structural work that was needed in here involved the window seating. “When I first moved in, the window seat was already there but just too high,” Buckley says. “All the windows have original shutters, which meant there was no space for a window seat cushion. So — it might sound ridiculous — I had them taken out and rebuilt lower so there was space for a cushion as well as for the shutters to open and close.” She incorporated storage underneath them, too. “They stash all sorts of household bits and pieces.”

Fabric on armchair and footstool: Samos, Vaughan Designs; fabric on sofa: Zebra, Neisha Crosland; rug: Spectrum, The Rug Company


The striking photographic portraits are Buckley’s own, taken while she was traveling in North India and Papua New Guinea. Along with travel mementos, family heirlooms feature heavily in the flat — the antique glass cabinet was inherited from Buckley’s grandmother. The coffee table was a vintage find online.


The one-floor flat is arranged around a central hallway, from which you get quite a colorful view. “Yes, I didn’t worry too much about a color flow throughout the flat,“ Buckley says. “I think people can get a bit hung up on things having to flow from room to room. It’s something to consider, but I don’t allow it to be a ruling factor — ultimately, if you want a red hallway, you should have one.”

Moroccan rug: Larusi; wall paint: Rectory Red, Farrow & Ball; bonze lantern: Julian Chichester (no longer available)


“When I told people I was going to have a pink kitchen, they looked at me as if I’d lost my mind,” Buckley says. “But I think it’s just so pretty, and the black and white sharpens it all up.”

She and her decorator mixed the paint color. “We slopped some paint between cans — a bit unorthodox, but the result is very close to Farrow & Ball’s Middleton Pink, which is in the bathroom,” she says.

The floral blind is made from Misia fabric by Manuel Canovas. “[Hotel designer] Kit Kemp had used it in the Covent Garden Hotel, and I thought it was really beautiful. It’s quite expensive, but this piece was a remnant I picked up on a trip to London. At the time I had no idea what I’d do with it.” She had the fabric trimmed with black and designed the bottom edge to feature the same curve as on the backs of the chairs.

Seat pad fabric: Ian Mankin; blind fabric: Misia, Manuel Canovas; oven: Rangemaster





Buckley’s bedroom has a striking feature wall and is another example of the designer’s resourcefulness. “I was lusting after some hand-painted silk chinoiserie wallpaper by a company called de Gournay,” she says. “But it’s arms-and-legs expensive, so instead I found a mural artist and asked her to create a similar scene for me in paint.“

Buckley also got creative with the bed, which she bought from Sofas & Stuff and customized with pink and white ticking. She had it raised, too. “I like that princess-and-the-pea feeling of literally climbing up into bed,” she says.

Wall paint: Tawny Crest, Dulux; silk eiderdown (similar): Counting Lambs; bed ticking: Ian Mankin



The bedside table is one of the ends of an antique extendable dining table. “This style of antique — what people refer to, rather disparagingly, as ‘brown furniture’ — has become quite unfashionable, but I love beautiful antique wooden pieces. I feel awful about having massacred the table, though. I chopped out the middle bit to create the bedside table.”


Buckley inherited both the chest of drawers and the botanical prints from her grandmother.


Buckley kept the window dressings neutral throughout most of the flat. “You need to let the eye rest with all the color,“ she says. The curtains look wonderfully lavish. “They’re made from ivory silk with loads of interlining, so they’re really luxurious — sort of like window wedding dresses,” she says. The chaise longue belonged to her parents.

Curtain silk: Henry Bertrand



The double shower curtains are quite the feature in Buckley’s pink bathroom. “They are lined with a plastic curtain, and the fabric itself is lined with pink ticking, so they’re quite luxurious, heavy curtains. They really prettify, dress up and soften the room and make it look much less bathroom-y,” she says.

Buckley already had two mirror panels and used them on the side of the bathtub. “It visually opens up the space, giving the impression the floor runs underneath the bath. Ideally I’d have liked one big panel, but I made use of what I had.”

The Carrara marble vanity top is a custom design.

Shower curtain fabric: GP & J Baker; wall paint: Middleton Pink, Farrow & Ball


The guest room was originally the kitchen, and vice versa, before Buckley renovated. She lived in the flat for a year before making any major decisions, to get used to the space.

“I was going to have the kitchen done first,” she says, “but it slowly became apparent the rooms were the wrong way round. The guest room was flooded with light, and in Edinburgh you really want to make the most of the sun when you get it. It seemed a waste to have all that sunlight in a room used only occasionally.”

The ikat cushions on the guest bed are made from fabric Buckley picked up in Uzbekistan, and she now sells similar designs in her own shop. She bought the rug in Morocco. The box frames on either side of the bed hold tribal ceremonial food bowls she picked up in Papua New Guinea.


Buckley wanted a fairy-tale feel in this room. “I wanted my guests to feel as if they were in a luxurious space, so I went for quite an old-fashioned, sumptuous effect,” she says. She fixed a bed canopy to the wall above the headboard and draped lavish fabric from it.

Bed canopy: OKA; wall paint: Polka Dot, Earthborn Paints; pillows (similar): Jessica Buckley Interiors; fabrics: Beauregard by Manuel Canovas and Samos by Vaughan Designs


Buckley’s study is next to the kitchen, and she made this a smaller room, allowing her to give some extra space to the kitchen, where she can now fit in a pantry and recessed fridge.

A clean, white Ikea drawer unit stashes Buckley’s fabric samples. Artwork she picked up in New York has been mounted in box frames.

Rug: Plantation Rug Company; wall paint: Pale Powder, Farrow & Ball; drawer unit: Alex, Ikea




Buckley’s desk has a skirt made of Ian Mankin ticking, with bright pink piping around the top. The custom blind is made from the same fabric. She had a piece of glass cut to fit the table, to provide a solid working surface.

Underneath the desk is Buckley’s printer, as well as beds for the two dogs. “It’s a cozy little den under there for them,” she says, “and they keep my feet warm in winter.”

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