Like many interior designers, Louisa Grey of House of Grey likes to leave behind the world of color and pattern when she crosses her own threshold. She and her husband and child live in a Victorian terrace house in London’s Islington defined by its pale shades and uncluttered surfaces: “It’s a place,” she says, “that keeps the mind clear in such a busy city.”
Grey recently converted the house from three flats?”last updated in the sixties, when vinyl was key to the scheme”?back to a single family dwelling. It was a big project, and for the large, built-from-scratch kitchen, she recruited fellow designer Jamie Blake of Blakes London as her collaborator. “Louisa wanted to create a beautiful yet practical space with a clean, minimalist Scandinavian feel,” explains Blake, who happens to specialize in the genre. Come take a look. Photography by 82mm, courtesy of Blakes London (@blakesldn).

Above: The kitchen is in the basement; formerly dark and dank, it has a new skylit extension with a wall of glass doors that open to the garden. The island incorporates a lot of storage and is set on castors: “It gets moved around for various gatherings to allow children to use the space with bikes and go-carts, and we’ve been known to hold egg and spoon races here when it’s too wet outside,” says Grey.

Above: A John Pawson devotee, Grey wanted the kitchen elements to “blend in seamlessly with the res...