False walls, dropped ceilings and recessed lighting, together with some bold design decisions, have combined to create a striking, small but perfectly formed home in Edinburgh
There aren’t many people who train in agricultural science and end up working in interior design. The two professions seem to be polar opposites but Sally Homan assures me that they are not so different. She left a senior management job in the food industry to retrain at the Chelsea KLC School of Design in London and then moved back to Edinburgh to establish Robertson Lindsay Interiors. “I would say that 80% of the skills are the same,” she laughs. “You’re managing a project and looking at budget, and about 20% of it is creative work.”
A keen developer, Sally got a real taste for interior design when she started buying properties and doing them up to sell. That was, however, a different sort of challenge to the one she has recently completed. Her own home, a New Town apartment (part of a converted Georgian townhouse) has been her most exacting project to date. “I had to put my own home on the back burner,” she explains, “because my clients come first and I had been busy working on a farmhouse in Fife and a chateau in France. My place took a little longer that I’d expected.”
It has been worth the wait. What looked at first like nothing more than a small flat with a difficult layout has been transformed by this fledgling interior designer. “I was house-hunting for a long time,” she recalls. “I knew I wanted to be in the New Town and that I wanted something that required quite a bit of work.
“As soon as I walked in here, I knew it was exactly what I was looking for. I could see what I would have to do to turn it into a really nice flat.”
This was more than just a paper-and-paint job. Sally began by preparing some 3-D drawings to help visualise the new layout she had in mind. Since the property is C-listed, she had to apply to the local authority with an outline of the alterations she was intending to make, along with plans for inspection. This level of listing is similar to applying for planning consent, so once her plans were approved she was free to go ahead with her proposed alterations.
This is just a taster, you can browse the full article with more stunning photography on pages 176-182, issue 93.
DETAILS
Words Catherine Coyle
Photography Suzanne Black
What A two-bedroom apartment
Where Edinburgh’s New Town
