House Style with Ella Jones
After showing us around her renovated home in Walthamstow, A New Tribe founder Ella Jones shares her house style.
You’re happiest at home when…
The sun is shining.
I’m definitely happiest when the sun is shining and we can spend time in the garden – it’s a really nice extension of the inside space. We’re lucky to have quite a big garden as we have a train line at the back of it, which also means that it’s not overlooked. As we live quite close to Walthamstow Marshes and the Wetlands, we get an amazing variety of birds in the garden, which is really lovely.
How would you describe the interiors of your house?
A calm yet cosy space.
It’s quite an open space as we removed all of the internal walls downstairs. This sense of spaciousness, amplified by the polished concrete floor, gives it quite a calm vibe; however, we wanted it to feel cosy too, so we designed some dividing screens with reeded glass panels to break up the space without making it feel closed in.
We then used paint colours following Le Corbusier’s colour theory to draw the space back in and added texture through lots of Moroccan rugs. I love our collection of objects which have been amassed over time from our travels, and most of the things that are around us have nice memories attached to them.
If you could only save one thing, what would it be?
My collection of Moroccan rugs.
I guess it goes without saying based on what I sell at A New Tribe that I’m slightly obsessed with Moroccan rugs! We have quite a few in the house and they are definitely my most treasured items. The rugs that we have at home are mainly vintage Boujad and vintage Azilal which are some of my favourites – each is one-of-a-kind and hand woven by Berber tribes in Morocco. I love the story and history behind these rugs.
What was the last thing you bought for the house?
A painting by Jojo Bedell.
Magnus and I recently bought a painting, Chair with Cushion, by Jojo Bedell as a Christmas present to ourselves. We bought it from The Old Bank Vault Gallery on Hackney Road. We instantly loved it and had the perfect spot for it downstairs in our house; it hangs against a blue wall, which really complements the colours in the painting.
Top three coffee table books?
Cabana Anthology; The New Mediterranean; and Connections: Moroccan Carpets Design/Art/Architecture.
We have a lot of books that I love, but my very favourite book is Connections by Francoise Dorget. It’s a beautiful collection of images of rare Moroccan rugs presented alongside comparable images with visual similarities to the rugs but from the world of architecture, art and design. The images side by side are incredible – it’s very inspirational.
If money was no object, what changes would you make?
I’d love a garden room or Victorian-style greenhouse.
We’re pretty happy with the house as it is; we spent a long timing planning it and putting a lot of thought into how the space would work for us before we started the renovations. However, I would love to add a garden studio or even a beautiful greenhouse at the end of the garden at some point. We’re pretty tight on storage in the house so it would be great to have a bit more room for this, as well as a beautiful space that could evolve based on what we might need it for at the time.
You’re having people over for dinner: what do you cook?
I love to make a variety of dishes to share.
I prefer to cook vegetarian food, and I love to cook lots of dishes that people can share. I tend to follow a recipe as I’m not the most intuitive cook – my go-to cookbooks are Ottolenghi’s Simple, or any of the cookbooks by Melissa Hemsley. I got quite into baking during the first lockdown too, so I do like to bake a cake if people are coming round.
What does a Sunday here look like?
Lazy mornings and walking our dog.
If I’m not working in the shop then Sundays tend to start quite slowly, relaxing with cups of tea and breakfast before taking our dog Peggy for a walk, sometimes picking up some lunch from our favourite local Lighthaus Cafe on the way back. Then, if we don’t have any plans to meet friends, I’ll most likely be pottering around in the garden.
What are the best things about the neighbourhood?
It’s really peaceful with just enough going on.
I love our neighbourhood. We’re lucky to have a park at the end of our road and not much traffic, so it definitely has a peaceful feeling but still has lots of life as lots of people walk down our road to get to the park. At the other end of our road, you have St James Street, which has some nice cafe options to get a coffee or lunch. When we moved here there was only really one cafe, so it’s nice to see more independent businesses opening up and to have a few more options.
How long will you be here for?
The foreseeable future.
We’re really happy here and have no plans to move anytime soon. We don’t want to leave London, and I can’t see any other reason why we would want to move anytime soon. Having said this, my dream is to also have a place in Morocco so that we could have a base there too, but this is definitely just a dream at the minute!
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