Her clients include estate agents, homeowners, interior designers… ‘Basically, anyone with an empty home who wants it to look original and feel wonderful to be in,’ she explains. ‘Our style is the opposite of that “karate-chop cushion” developer look. Everything we do is about making a place look like a home, rather than a generic showroom.’
Her own home, a Victorian villa in Shepherd’s Bush, which she and her husband bought in 2004, is a case in point. The property functions as a sort of domestic gallery, filled with colour, pattern and beautiful finds.
‘A lot of the furniture and art here is processing its way through my home into someone else’s,’ she says. ‘I try to reinvent, repurpose and recycle as much as possible, and not be too precious about things. The nature of my work means that very little stays put in the house for too long.’
Its current incarnation is its second since the couple bought the house, and the result of a renovation completed in 2020. ‘I was planning just to redecorate,’ says Bella, ‘but then decided that I might as well use the opportunity of having to vacate the house to make some bigger changes. We added a double-height extension to the kitchen, and created a master-bedroom suite. The children are older now, and we wanted a home where we could all coexist without being under each other’s feet.’
Today, the new extension houses an ex-display kitchen by Tim Moss and a Lacanche cooker, which Bella bought second-hand via eBay. The ceilings soar to 20ft high and the walls are clad in reclaimed oak boards and Pierre Frey wallpaper.