What happens when a florist and an interior designer shape a home together? In Freddie and Sophie Garland’s house, the answer lies in abundant blooms, joyful colour and rooms designed for cheerful family life.
I visit the couple at their four-bedroom house on a leafy street in Kensal Green.
They live in this pleasingly peaceful spot with their two young children, Jesse and Sadie.
“We really wanted our downstairs floor to feel like somewhere people could gather,” Freddie — the founder of Freddie’s Flowers — tells me as we lounge in the sitting area, my coffee perched on the leopard-print ottoman.
The space stretches out in a series of zones for sitting, cooking and dining. It is bathed in light from the country-style back doors, framed by Soane Britain fabric curtains, that open on to the garden.
The Garlands (yes, that is their real surname) moved here from Brixton during the height of the Covid pandemic in 2020, drawn by the generous proportions of the Victorian property as well as the neighbourhood.
“We like the fact that our garden backs onto a train line because it means we do not have neighbours looking directly in and it creates a sense of space,” says Freddie.
Yet the house they bought looked very different from the one they live in today. “Originally it was completely flat from the front to the back,” he explains.
“We realised if we lowered the floor we could create this really high kitchen, which felt like such an opportunity.”
The kitchen, with its blue cabinets by Blockhouse Build, green granite worktops and a mural by Eliza Downes, has become Sophie’s favourite room.
“It just feels so light and peaceful,” she says. “We wanted to make the ground floor open plan because it worked better for us with kids. You are together but you are not on top of each other.”
The renovation was a major undertaking. Floors were dug out, walls reconfigured and a new flow created between the rooms.
The result is a family space that feels airy and expansive, while still retaining the character of the original house.
Upstairs, the couple combined two smaller rooms to create a spacious main bedroom suite with a dressing room and bathroom.
Their children have dreamy bedrooms which strike a balance of whimsical and chic. Designing a home around little people can be a juggling act in itself, but the couple have approached it both pragmatically and stylishly.
An embroidered Liberty London fabric headboard makes for the sweetest bed. Toys are discreetly stored in built-in cupboards while the dining table doubles as a homework station.
“I remember when I was a kid you would disappear into your room,” Freddie says. “But here they tend to gather around us.”
Jesse has begun showing an interest in his father’s floral world. “He is getting quite into helping with the arrangements,” Freddie beams. “I have definitely encouraged that.”
Sophie’s lived-in and loved interiors style shines in the thoughtful layering of textures and colours. She is very much about the personal touches and was not rigid in the aesthetic she wanted to introduce to their home.
“The design definitely evolved,” she says. “We tried painting the living room white at one point and it just felt completely wrong.
It looked like a museum so we quickly repainted it to introduce more colour and it felt so much warmer.”
She also recalls the drama of choosing the exterior paint colour. “We tested loads of shades for the back but somehow did not test the front,” she says. “When it was finished it was this unbelievable Smurf blue.”
It lasted only a few days before being repainted. “Someone walked past and said, ‘Thank god you’re fixing that,’” she laughs.
Subtle tones of pale pink are threaded throughout. “There is no set colour palette but I quite often work with soft pinks in my projects,” Sophie says.
“They are surprisingly versatile and they soften everything. Freddie’s favourite colour is green so we have a lot of green in the house and I always like working with red.”
Art is everywhere, much of it connected to family and friends. A painting by artist Layla Andrews greets guests in the hallway. It was given to the couple as a wedding gift.
In the living room are works by friend Rose Electra Harris, whose expressive paintings bring bursts of energy to the space.
Sophie’s family also features prominently: her godfather is a photographer and several of his images are dotted around, while the work of her aunt, artist Edwina Sandys, is also on display, including one of her striking horse sculptures.
A series of paintings by Sophie’s father hang proudly on the staircase’s hessian walls. “We tend to be drawn to artwork that depicts scenes or means something to us,” Sophie says. “We seem to gravitate towards pictures of flowers.”
Over the years, Freddie and Sophie have collected pieces from antiques fairs, countryside trips and online auctions, allowing each room to develop organically.
“The soft furniture was all made for us but the rest was eBay, Vinterior and antiques shops,” says Sophie.
A pair of red lacquer chairs, sourced from local vintage haunt Retrouvius, are favourites and the latest treasured item is an old Ministry of Defence desk from Vinterior in their son Jesse’s bedroom.
“Kempton is where I go to find things,” Freddie chimes. “My trips there are often flower-focused and I like finding vessels. Ardingly Antiques Fair is good as well. We also sourced so many great pieces along Golborne Road.”
While Sophie brings a trained eye to interiors, Freddie contributes a different creative perspective. Freddie’s Flowers, the subscription-based delivery service he founded in 2014, has grown rapidly in recent years, introducing thousands of households to seasonal British blooms.
Despite having a father who owned a flower shop on Pimlico Road, he had little formal experience in floristry when he began.
“I genuinely had no knowledge at the start,” he explains. “It was more of an instinct — a feeling that I wanted to do something with flowers.”
He started the business, which now has more than 150 employees, in the garden of his parents’ house in Wandsworth and packed and delivered all the initial orders himself.
That instinct has since blossomed into a thriving business, but Freddie finds himself drawn back to the craft itself. “It is funny how things come full circle,” he says.
“I am trying to spend more time actually arranging flowers again, which is where these little frog vases have come from. I love playing with shape and structure.”
Indeed, small metal kenzan frogs — the spiked bases used in Japanese ikebana — appear around the house, holding delicate stems in sculptural arrangements. His videos of the arrangements have become a viral hit on the @freddiesflowers Instagram account.
Home scent comes naturally from Freddie’s floral arrangements. Paperwhite narcissus, sweet peas, daffodils and peonies fill the air with fragrance.
“Some flowers smell incredible,” he says. “Others … not so much. Alliums are basically onions.” You have been warned.
So what about the outside? “My mum was actually a garden designer,” Freddie says, explaining she helped guide the layout.
Initially, however, the garden was something of an afterthought. “We were so exhausted from the renovation that we just put lawn down and called it a day,” he laughs.
The lawn quickly proved impractical for a busy family. “We realised we are just not the kind of people who are going to maintain perfect grass,” Sophie says. The space has since been reworked with more resilient planting.
As our conversation winds down, Freddie disappears briefly through the glass doors into the garden. Moments later he returns with a handful of freshly cut stems — a loose gathering of whatever has caught his eye that morning.
He trims them quickly at the kitchen counter and arranges them into an unfussy bunch before handing them over for me to take home. It feels like the most fitting farewell.
© The Standard Ltd