Desig House: Real Homes: a symphony of seventies colour

Interior-design duo Keech Green reworked and redecorated this London flat for their young clients: the result pays homage to the house's Arts and Crafts heritage and also the couple's favourite local football team

There comes a moment in a young couple's life when the exhausted neutrals in their post-university flat begin to pall. As responsibilities grow and priorities change, they soon realise that shopping for lampshades is, in fact, fun and at this point house hunting tends to follow suit.

For the twentysomething owners of this London flat, that moment was the catalyst for the purchase of a grown-up space to match their maturing interests. When they bought it, however, it required more than a trip to Ikea to transform it into the home of their dreams. 'The flat needed complete renovation and detailed consent to meet the heritage planning requirements,' says Graham Green, one half of the __design duo Keech Green, whom the couple called upon to aid them in these taxing tasks.

Part of a house that was built in 1848, it later became the home of a distinguished Edwardian architect who occupied the house from 1890 to 1930. Behind many significant London landmarks, the architect's extensive public portfolio is noted for its imposing monumentality but, in his domestic life, he favoured something more intimate. This can certainly be seen in his redesign of this house, where he worked in the Arts and Crafts style, introducing hand-crafted wood, delicately tinted stained glass and gentle references to the natural world.

In his day, the house sat in a fashionable corner of the capital but, as the twentieth century wore on, both the location and the house sank into decline. The area soon recovered, but the flat remained forlorn, and Keech Green's brief was to reinvent it as a relaxed, contemporary home, while paying due deference to its notable past.

Michael Keech and Graham Green have a considerable pedigree working with historic buildings, and were unfazed by the need to reinstate damaged cornices and missing marquetry. 'The most demanding aspect was to find suitable replacements for the Arts and Crafts chimneypieces and fire surrounds, some of which had been stolen and replaced with inappropriate later examples,' says Graham, who worked with Jamb to create appropriate reproduction period designs.

The original __design for one of the floors centred on a handsome panelled hallway, where a coved plasterwork ceiling is whimsically adorned with a spider embedded in a dainty floral web. 'All the principal rooms flow out from here but, when we began, the doorways were of different heights,' says Graham. 'Our first decision was to rationalise it.'

To unite the space, they evened out the door frames and added matching panelling to some adjoining rooms. They also opened up the division between the spacious drawing room and what had once been a library to create a dining area.

Though the couple had a fine taste for antique furniture, the intention was never going to be period pastiche. There was, on the other hand, initially some discussion about exactly what form of 'modern' the owners were looking for.

'When we first started talking, they showed us a red Perspex chair,' says Graham. 'We realised fairly quickly, however, that they didn't want a New York warehouse.' It would have been surprising if they had, since Keech Green are designers known for interiors that are soothingly classic. Graham trained as an architect, Michael as a retail and theatrical designer, and the two met when working for Ralph Lauren. There they helped develop the signature country-house look - a style they later successfully applied to a myriad of international projects from Scottish castles to Italian villas.

Here, the owners were seeking something more urban, if equally timeless, but they also had a number of specific requirements. These included: easy-to-use entertaining space for large and small parties; a designated room to cheer on their favourite football team, Chelsea; and high-style housing for their collection of tropical fauna.

'Technically, building the two aquaria proved to be one of the most difficult parts of the job,' says Graham. 'One of the floors had to be specially reinforced to accommodate the weight of the water.'

Today, a glimmering rainbow of fish and terrapins glide majestically about in their bronze-trimmed habitat, while the owners' other specifications have all been successfully met. The bay-windowed drawing room, with its sink-into sofas and imposing stone chimneypiece, is a splendid space for the largest of parties. While for smaller gatherings, the quieter dining room, with its expansive oak dining table and leather seating, and the more funky, retro study, a Seventies symphony of Hermès orange and chocolate brown complete with a bar, are both cosy and cosseting.

The tribute to Chelsea is subtle rather than rattle blaring, and, in the lounge-back-and-cheer media room adjoining the main bedroom, blue dominates, with crowd-pleasing sofas upholstered in shades that coordinate nicely with the team's home strip.

Throughout the flat, the restrained palette of sophisticated neutrals and medley of indulgent materials - leather, marble, velvet, silk and linen - work together to grown-up, but never stuffy, effect. And, like the architect before them, the interior designers have made full use of the hand-crafted and bespoke - a gleaming, olive-wood tallboy in the main bedroom, a games table by the drawing-room window, a handsome bronze coffee table textured with a map of the local area - to provide the couple with a home that is both personal and unique. A home, moreover, that has retained a strong voice of the past, while being handed firmly on to a new generation.

Keech Green: 020-7351 5701; keechgreen.com