Welcome fellow dreamers, we are so glad you could make it to this starry-eyed series. Please don’t get up, just allow yourself to drift into our House where we have prepared an abundance of dream-fuel to keep your consciousness creative. We have invited some of our favourite creative visionaries to take us on a journey as they bring their interior dreams to life with all things House of Hackney. Starting with a dream and ending with a fully realised scheme, join us as we introduce our Dreamers & Schemers…
House of Hackney: Thank you for being our first Dreamer & Schemer Jess, we're so honoured to be kicking off with you. As you know, this series is all about telling the stories and design journeys of creative people we find inspiring. Do you mind telling us a little about yourself and your beautiful townhouse in East London?
Jess: Ahh well, you know the honour is all ours. So, I’m a songwriter and musician by trade but have had quite a diversification of my work in the last 5 years due to some big personal life events. So whilst music is always my home, I am now a director of the humanitarian organisation ‘Choose Love’, creator and host of the ‘Human podcast with Jess Mills’ and day-to-day run my beloved late mother’s legacy foundation, the ‘Tessa Jowell Foundation’ which I founded to deliver her legacy after her passing from brain cancer 3 years ago.
Midnight Garden
Wallpaper - Multi
From $235.00
/ Per Roll
Jess: So on to the house, we’ve literally just finished the first big round of decorating so it all feels very new and glorious to be living in the space. The house has been on a massive journey this past year. We bought it nearly 3 years ago, just weeks before I was about to have our second daughter and it was in a very bad way. But it had good bones, massive potential, beautiful dimensions and lots of space - so it was always going to be a big project when the time was right. Initially when we first bought [the house] - just to make it look good - we knocked down a few walls, put in some new windows at the front and sprayed the whole of the inside white, which did the job for a while. But we started the full renovation in January 2021, so now the whole house has been reimagined from top to bottom.
“You have combined the dark romance of old london, florence and new yourk all at once.”
House of Hackney: From the outside, you would assume your home to be your typical East London townhouse, but as soon as you step inside you're greeted by this subtle yet welcoming Hollywood Hills vibe. What inspires you when it comes to your home and how important is form versus function?
Jess: When we were designing the house it was important that form and function could co-exist and complement each other. We wanted to do something bold with the space that integrated the traditional and contemporary parts of the vision we had. We have two kids and a big extended family, so first and foremost we wanted it to be a beautiful space to live in. The most defining things we did [included] creating a two-storey elevation in the kitchen with a chapel-style window and big hanging pendant lights, knocking our bedroom through to what was our daughter’s room to make an en-suite bathroom - which you have snapped here - and adding a new floor and balcony on the top. I love cooking and love having friends over so it was also important that the kitchen could handle the wear and tear of raucous friends and regular kitchen parties
House of Hackney: On to the room we're here to really talk about - the bathroom - and what a bathroom it is. Often I think people see this space as purely functional, it's there to serve a purpose, but it feels what you have done is really look at what this room can do for you and your family. It's taking the ‘room’ out of ‘bathroom’ and giving it its own strong identity. One of our eternal muses, Madeleine Castaing, was one of the first people to look at the bathroom and consider its purpose, curating the space to give it its own voice and it feels like you have done the same. What was the space like when you first moved in and what vision did you have for it?
Jess: I love a bath. I’ll have two a day if I can and normally my kids will pile in too. So I wanted the bathroom to be a place that felt like a beautiful little world of its own, whilst also being practical for a family. The bathroom was my eldest daughter's bedroom when we first moved in, it was pretty nondescript and had a much smaller square window at the back. Dropping the window and adding moulding around it made a massive difference to the overall feel. Also putting back all the decorative moulding and ceiling roses instantly restored the traditional sense of romance that this house has.
House of Hackney: Once you had dreamed up what kind of space you wanted, how did you come to scheme it? Do you find yourself led by a feeling when you decorate or is there a real process you follow?
Jess: Neither me or my husband have ever done a project like this before, so doing all of the design and interiors ourselves felt like a big thing to take on. But we have just been led by feel, knowing what we love and not overthinking it too much when something felt right. I’m sure it will continue to evolve and the interiors will change over the years, but for now it feels great.
House of Hackney: What led you to Midnight Garden and was the ambition always to envelope the room in this print?
Jess: One of the things I love so much about Frieda and Javvy’s designs is how you pull on different aspects of culture and heritage and somehow reimagine or subvert them. I love the dark romance of this print. It feels like you have combined the dark romance of old London, Florence and New York all at once. It feels like a faded photograph from a hundred years ago with a naughty twist.
House of Hackney: I'd love to know, if these walls could sing, what would they be singing?
Jess: I love a bathroom party even more than a kitchen one. It’s a hard one to narrow down but if push came to shove, these walls most often sing Voodoo Ray ‘A Guy Called Gerald’.
House of Hackney: Lastly, any personal decorating or interior styling tips for our budding dreamers at home?
Jess: Spend some time collecting images of what you love. Pinterest is great for that and it helps visualise what you maybe haven’t been able to put your finger on yet. Then don't sacrifice what makes your heart sing for practicality. We only live once, be led by what you love x
If Jess is a dream you don’t want to wake from; keep up with all of her creative and charitable endeavours below.
FOLLOW: @thisisjessmills
SUPPORT: choose love, tessajowellfoundation
Related Stories
