A house furnished the way a home is gathered over time — vintage pieces sourced and restored, designer chairs reupholstered in the Maslow's Kensington palette, bespoke tables made locally, and a quiet Italian thread of mid-century furniture running all the way through.
For Maslow's Kensington, we furnished the way a collector builds a home — gathering pieces with history and pairing them with things made by hand, so the rooms feel layered and lived-in from the first day the doors opened.
Rather than specify a single catalogue look, we assembled the house piece by piece: sourcing original mid-century furniture, restoring and reupholstering it in the Maslow's Kensington palette, commissioning bespoke pieces from UK makers, and dressing it all in fabrics chosen for texture and story. Every decision was led by the studio, from the first sketch to the final cushion — the result an interior with a sense of permanence that's warm, tactile and impossible to replicate from one supplier.
No single source defines the house. The character comes from the blend — bespoke pieces made for the rooms, vintage finds with history, and carefully chosen high-street and trade pieces where they earn their place.
Indicative balance, shown to illustrate the approach rather than an exact audit.
In the garden room, natural bamboo and cane were used to carry the feeling of the outdoors inside.
Woven bamboo, rattan and rush soften the space and blur the line between inside and out — a lighter, more tactile material language that lets the garden room read as its own gentle world within the house.
Sustainability here is the buying decision itself. Wherever possible, original pieces were sourced, restored and reupholstered rather than bought new — chosen for character and longevity, never trend.
A vintage Pieff Beta chair — padded chrome arms and all — was given a new lease of life, recovered in Tibor fabric and a Futura leather chosen to replicate the look and feel of original aged hide while meeting the rub-test and durability standards a working house needs. Every fabric in the house is commercial-grade and fully compliant, specified so the pieces can take daily use without losing their character. A vintage nest of tables sits nearby — small, stackable and easily moved, so the room can flex and rearrange around whoever's using it.
Italy is the muse here, not a theme — a subtle reflection that runs through the house to give each room a sense of connection.
It began in Oria, the café, and quietly spread from there — through the Gallery, the Living Room and the Den upstairs, in the ease of a Milanese lounge. You'll find a vintage Vico Magistretti chair refinished in the signature mulled-wine tone, a Silvia Coppola design reupholstered in Erika Shamrock leather, and Magistretti's cane-seated Carimate chairs bringing their warmth to the space. The dining chair was beautifully crafted by the Contract Chair Company, inspired by a vintage Frattini piece and upholstered in Métaphores. Around them, rosewood credenzas and sculptural bentwood frames carry the same gentle Italian calm — felt rather than announced.
Where a piece didn't exist, it was made — by workshops chosen for craft, keeping fabrication local and supply chains short.
Bespoke bobbin side tables and timber pieces were made by Galvin Brothers, the Yorkshire cabinetmakers, their oak forms sitting quietly among the vintage finds. The residents' desks for the studies were designed and made bespoke, and across the seating, chrome detailing on the chair arms was crafted locally — by Ateliers London, Eatons and the Contract Chair Company. Keeping fabrication close to home kept supply chains short and the craft personal.
The studies and meeting rooms had to perform as workspaces while feeling like part of the house — never like an office dropped inside it.
The residents' desks were made-to-measure and bespoke: lockable drawers, hard-wearing Forbo tops, and fully demountable construction so the studies can be reconfigured and moved as the house evolves. The chairs are the fully ergonomic Humanscale Freedom task chair, designed by Niels Diffrient — used across all the Maslow's houses — here in Kensington's own COM signature sartorial fabrics from Camira and Gabriel, both with strong cradle-to-cradle stories. Eames boardroom chairs in soft pad and Matteograssi meeting chairs — both in leather — complete the rooms. Function handled quietly, so the studies still read as Maslow's.
The bespoke pieces began as technical drawings — every frame, joint, dimension and fabric specified by the studio and engineered with our UK makers before a single cut was made.
A showwood beech frame in a natural open-grain stain, with loose seat and back cushions wrapped in our main fabric. Bent-arm profile, timber glides, every angle drawn to the millimetre.
A solid oak chair with a curved back rail and upholstered seat, shown with its mortise-and-tenon leg joint — traditional joinery detailed for contract durability and made in Britain.
A bespoke oak games table with an inlaid chessboard set into the top, a solid 10mm edge trim and a sculptural twin-column pedestal — a piece made purely to invite people to sit, play and stay a while.
Fabrics were chosen as carefully as the furniture they dress — woven texture, warm stripe, soft bouclé and leather, every cloth fire-treated to contract standard without losing its hand.
Cloth was drawn from a considered mix of mills and houses, several of them UK manufacturers with strong sustainability credentials — Yarn Collective, Tibor, Camira, Sunbury, Kirkby Design and Osborne & Little among them — alongside European houses including Métaphores, Misia, Larsen, Pierre Frey, Gabriel, Casamance, Nobilis and Kvadrat, in tones of terracotta, ochre, moss and mulled wine, each chosen for texture, durability and the way it ages.
The vintage Jindřich Halabala bentwood armchair appears in every Maslow's house — Mortimer House in Fitzrovia, 1 Warwick in Soho, and now Kensington.
It's a quiet signature: the same 1930s Czech design, sourced and restored for each house, tying the family of spaces together through a single recognisable piece. At Kensington it wears a Kravet fabric — itself a deliberate nod back to 1 Warwick — so the connection runs through both the form and the cloth. The same idea carries into the workspaces: Humanscale's Freedom chair and the Eames soft-pad boardroom chair appear across all the houses too, each dressed in its own house fabrics — so the family feels connected, but every house stays its own.
It looks like a home, but it works like a workplace. Power is built discreetly into the furniture itself — so members can sit down and plug in wherever they land.
Tables and sofas carry concealed power and charging, integrated so carefully it disappears into the joinery and upholstery. No visible cable runs, no hunting for a socket — just quiet, interactive power moments woven through the house, letting a desk, a sofa or a side table become a place to work.
The best rooms aren't decorated — they're assembled, slowly, by an eye that knows what belongs.
A house like this rewards a closer look — not because it's flawless, but because it feels lived-in. The pieces below give it a warmth and ease that's hard to replicate; a little unpolished, so you can actually feel at home.
The vintage pieces were found, not ordered. Alongside the established marketplaces — Vinterior and 1stDibs — we hunted through independent UK vintage dealers, leaving no stone unturned.
Each dealer brings its own eye and its own sustainability credentials, but what they share is the thing you can't manufacture: a lived-in quality, unique and quietly nostalgic, that makes a room feel good the moment you walk in.
Procurement on the project was handled by Dodds & Shute, a certified B Corp — aligning how the furniture was bought with the sustainable thinking behind how it was chosen.
Their B Corp status means every purchasing decision is measured against verified social and environmental standards, so the considered, second-life approach to sourcing is matched by a considered supply chain behind it.
From first sketch to final styling, Mehrai Design led the FF&E vision for Maslow's Kensington — sourcing and restoring the vintage, reupholstering designer pieces in the Maslow's Kensington palette, commissioning bespoke furniture from UK makers, and specifying every fabric and finish.
With thanks to Maslow's for the trust and the collaboration, and to the photographers whose images tell the story of the house.
Lead designer — FF&E, art direction and creative vision.
