The Roberts’ Playful Wonderland West End Townhouse

Written by

updated Feb 20, 2019

We independently select these products—if you buy from one of our links, we may earn a commission. All prices were accurate at the time of publishing.

Name: Cori & Jake Roberts
Location: West End; Glasgow, Scotland
Size: Three story town house
Years lived in: 3 years; owned

I can only conclude that Cori, her husband Jake (a film editor) and their three beautiful boys, Milo, Jonah and Louis, have effortless style running through their veins. Cori was born in Sweden, and with a photographer for a mother and artist for a father; their home was a hive of creativity. Her parents were forever pulling things out of skips – salvaging unloved furniture and turning it into something beautiful. As a result, Cori has an innate love for Scandinavian style (with a particular weakness for Danish design), that oozes all over their stunning Glasgow Georgian townhouse.

(Image credit: Lizzie Ford)

Like the Willy Wonka approach to interior design, every room has been reinvented with total freedom of imagination. The result is a magnificent home with space for children to be children – swinging seats suspended from the ceiling and walls you can draw on? Tick. And grown ups to be children too – check out the cinema room complete with glitter ball, giant beanbags and projector screen! One thing is clear; this family certainly proves you can be serious about design and seriously fun too.

(Image credit: Lizzie Ford)

Apartment Therapy Survey:

My Style: I love traditional, old, kitsch and quirky so I guess I’ve got quite eclectic taste. The challenge for me and what defines my style, is to put all these elements together in some kind of contemporary fashion. I’m aiming for a warm, unusual, practical and sophisticated space which is fun to live in.

Inspiration: This one is easy… The house!

We live in a beautiful Georgian town house in the heart of the Glasgow’s west end. Large windows overlook communal gardens filled with huge grand trees. The house itself is bursting with traditional features such as cornices, high ceilings, open fire places. With it’s original majestic staircase sweeping up through the house it feels like a very inviting place to get drawn into. So what a great canvas for anyone to work with.

Favorite Element: My old Hobart bread dough maker, it’s gorgeous, and obviously I have to bake a lot of bread to justify the space it takes up. My husband is laughing at this statement.. for reasons I am unsure of. I have also managed to buy an old vintage Hovis bread tin to make the perfect loaf, with Hovis etched on the side. He is laughing uncontrollably… I think he feels I’m not as a successful of a bread maker as I would like to think I am? Or maybe it’s about the choice of my favourite element?

I could talk about our bed. It’s a Savoir bed which is a ridiculously expensive bed and if I had to choose to keep just one thing, I guess it would have to be the bed hands down. It was an ex display model, which softened the blow a little. We both always long for home and love jumping in to the soft cloud of pure joy, worth every penny!

Biggest Challenge: FINISHING THINGS OFF!

What Friends Say: We do get a lot of WOW’s & house envy’s. But bear in mind that a lot of our friends live in London!

Biggest Embarrassment: I just asked my husband what he thought my biggest embarrassment was and I think we rolled around laughing for what felt like an hour with him reeling out antidotes one after the other of some of the things that I could mention here!?

The wine fridge that I recently bought was one; it was slimline and fitted a small space perfectly in the kitchen, I really feel that the gleaming stainless steel fridge, matching my other appliances really lifted my vintage kitchen perfectly into a contemporary realm. The only problem is… it is so slim and snug that we have been forced to start drinking ‘blue nun’ wine, as we can’t actually fit any other normal bottle of wine into it!?

Proudest DIY: Ok, I’m not going to be coy here.. sorry my darling Jake. I am definitely the one holding the screw driver in the house… I’m more tenacious than skilled though. My proudest recent DIY moment was stripping the paint off of the fire place is the living-room to unveil black marble underneath!? I just love it when that happens!

Biggest Indulgence: Hmm… Perhaps our 1.5 meter long french dual cooker, but maybe that’s a bit of a boring indulgence? I think our cinema room must be our guilty pleasure and most besets indulgence. We have three giant Buddha bags which we can flop into, support up to three adults per bag. This is where we hide on a cold, rainy evening (of which there are many, here in Scotland)… watch movies and eat pop corn.

Best Advice: Is not to give any! Advice is just annoying, because if you have your mind set on something you don’t want it squashed by some ‘know it all’ … We are all so different! I always think ‘if there is a will there is a way’

But if I had to give one piece of advice I would say ‘Get rid of stuff! Donate it! Give it away! Sell it! My motto ‘de-clutter!’

(Image credit: Lizzie Ford)

Resources of Note:

ENTRY

Timorous Beasties statement wallpaper
Farrow & Ball paint
French coat rack from Chiswick
Old post office pigeonhole unit

LIVING ROOM

wood burner from a retailer online
modular vintage red sofa – eBay
chaise lounge – from reclamation yard
Set of three ‘nesting tables in teak’, from local low brow furniture shop around the corner from us
Our 1960’s lighting – standing & wall mounted – Authentics, Otago Street Glasgow
Lingo Rosso carpet – Ex display Lingo Rosso shop
Large bird sculpture lighting – Artwork
Farrow & Ball paint

BEDROOM

Saovoir bed – Saovoir bed shop, ex display
Bed Linen – White company
Wall paper – American vintage wall paper shop
Farrow & Ball paint
White Plastic table – made by a friend Al Smith
Dressing table – eBay
Lime green cushions – John Lewis
Bed spread – John Lewis
Farrow & Ball paint

KIDS BEDROOM

Bed – French bunk bed shop
wall – black board paint B&Q
Map of the wold – on line wall paper shop
Swings – ikea
Play table – eBay
Lego heads – aplaceforeverything.co.uk
Moon light – Habitat
Beaded whale – mum brought back from Africa

KITCHEN

Original Godin 1950’s cooker from a specialist in Bath. They buy this units and usually strip the paint off. I was adamant to buy one still with original paint left on, completely different look to the steel stripped ones.
Gagganau fridge freezer – Gumtree
Kitchen railing – Rosle
Taps – e-bay
Work tops – bought online. Original chemistry work tops from a school, still with graffiti scraped in to the wood!
Window seat – ‘teak wood school tops’ from a reclamation yard in Glasgow on Dumbarton Road.
Units for glasses and plates – Ikea
Tiles – from an old hospital
Hobart dough maker – restaurant & hotel second hand on line shop
1970’s Children’s play castle – e-bay
Felt storage baskets – John Lewis
3 globe celling lights – Authentics, Otago Street, Glasgow
Many nick nacks from Felix and Oscars on Great Western Rd, Glasgow
Farrow & Ball paint

CINEMA ROOM

Table – Scotty Cunningham
Puffs – Graham and Green
Zebra cowhide – local shop on Great Western Road
Linge Rosse storage – eBay
Giant Budda bags from the Budda bag company
Farrow & Ball paint

(Image credit: Lizzie Ford)

Thanks, Cori & Jake!

• HOUSE TOUR ARCHIVE: Check out past house tours here.
• Interested in sharing your home with Apartment Therapy? Contact the editors through our House Tour Submission Form.
• Are you a designer/architect/decorator interested in sharing a residential project with Apartment Therapy readers? Contact the editors through our Professional Submission Form.