Home Tour: An Elegant Modern Edwardian Home With Period Features

If you’re searching for inspiration on how to decorate an Edwardian house without losing its period features then this Home Tour may be one of the most exciting articles you read…

Edwardian era homes are characterized by light and bright rooms, and pastel tones.

Residents of the time wanted to move away from the darker rooms filled with furniture of the Victorian era to ones with a more relaxing atmosphere.

We have spoken to Lucy who owns the Instagram account @edwardiansemi

Lucy and her family have taken these concepts and added a modern twist that’s created a comfortable and elegant feel.

Rooms Solutions spoke to her to get an understanding for how she works…

Q&A With Lucy

There’s a modern elegance to your home. Is this your style specifically or do Edwardian houses choose modern elegance all by themselves?

My style has certainly been influenced by the period features in this property and continues to evolve.

The house gives us so much to play with, it’s like a massive canvas with so much scope and potential.

Edwardian properties have great elegance by their very nature and this allows us to add contemporary twists and subtle pops of color without making things feel too modern. 

What’s your favorite room in your home and why?

It’s got to be the living room, it’s the one we have done the most with, and spend the least time in, so it always looks relatively tidy compared to the rest of the house!

I love the soft pink accents against the grey, the huge bay windows and the way the sun pours in in the morning, and all the candles and house plants make it a little sanctuary.

Have there been any unexpected decorating challenges along the way?

The main challenge is probably the length of my wish list and the limited time we have.

With three children aged 3 and under we are completely limited to doing bits on evenings when they’re sleeping.

Thankfully my husband is incredibly handy and I have big ideas so we make a winning team!

When we bought this house we didn’t actually think it needed much work – we had done a big project on a little Victorian farm cottage a few years back and weren’t really after another one.

To be fair, it’s mainly style than structure at the moment, but almost 18 months on, and we are barely even started. We still have a room full of unpacked boxes!

Which Edwardian features must you emphasize because of how great they look? 

The Edwardian fireplaces are fabulous.

Would you believe that when we moved in, we totally wanted to rip them all out?

We were so close to doing this but I had pangs of guilt and worry about removing the period features.

The interiors community on Instagram  completely inspired me to embrace these features and make them work for us.

There is so much you can do with period properties.

Who knew?!

We have painted 4 fireplaces and replaced the tiles in 2 as well as building new hearths (I use “we” loosely).

They’re almost unrecognizable now, but in a good way.

What advice do you have for others who are still trying to find their style?

Live in a property for a while before you make big decisions. Let your style evolve.

It doesn’t have to stay the same.

Seek inspiration from others and don’t be afraid to be a little bolder.

I was always a beige kind of girl, and now I’m ousting all the beige from the Edwardiansemi as fast as our budget allows!

You can do color without being too bold or too dark.

The palette is huge – plus, you can always change it (but don’t tell my husband I said that!).

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Rooms Solutions would like to say a huge thank you to Lucy for chatting to us.

We love Lucy’s home, you can find more images at the Instagram account she runs: @edwardiansemi

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