Nicola Harding's sleek and colourful design for a glorious riverside house

'For me, the kitchen is the most important room in the house,’ says interior designer Nicola Harding when introducing her House & Garden How To online kitchen design course. ‘It’s where most people spend most of their time and should be the best room.’ So when Nicola was asked by a young couple with a new baby to design their weekend retreat beside the River Thames, it was no surprise that she moved the kitchen from a small room at the back to a prime position, in a former reception room with doors onto the garden and views of the river. The house, brick-built in the late 18th century, had, over the succeeding centuries, been stuccoed, added to and then cut up. ‘It felt cold and inhospitable without any proper flow,’ recalls Nicola. ‘The first task was to pull its centre of gravity towards the garden and the amazing river views.’

The kitchen’s colour palette was kept deliberately calm with many different greens – from the strong olive of the Plain English units, to the pale willow of the door and window surrounds, which frame the vista of the garden and the river. ‘This lets the view steal the show,’ explains Nicola. And that is just how her clients like it. ‘They wanted an easy, unshowy, comfortable house – with soul.’

Nicola was able to create a door between the kitchen and the sitting room beyond, its pink walls trimmed with the same pale willow woodwork as the kitchen. This room also faces the garden. The tones of an L-shaped modular sofa by Howe London in blue linen, with an inky-hued plump footstool in its angle, are repeated in the patterned rug designed by Nicola with Christine Van Der Hurd. Beside the window, an armless sofa with a light hanging low over a small table and a chair pulled up to it, makes a useful corner for writing a list or glancing at a computer.

The owners did not bring any furniture to the house and Nicola has kept the relaxed feel they wanted, buying good and comfortable upholstery and simple Art Deco and mid-century pieces, such as the chest of drawers behind the sofa – formerly a fitting from a haberdashery shop. ‘I like throwing things of different periods in, so nothing is too stiff and predictable,’ she says. The curtains in the sitting room are made of an unlined fabric: they can be partially drawn on hot days and mitigate the sunlight bouncing off the river. When they stir in a breeze, the heavier stripes in the weave make a lovely dappled light in the room.

At the point when Nicola came to the project, the owners had plans to build a glass extension. However, she felt that this would be incongruous with the style of the house, as well as being subject to glare from the river and potentially too hot in summer, and would offer very little privacy from passing boats. Having taken the two main reception rooms for the kitchen and a relaxed sitting room, Nicola agreed that a more grown-up space was needed.

So she designed an orangery, with three full-length windows overlooking the river views and a skylight with electric blinds that filter the light throughout the year. Its dark blue walls give the space a serene glamour, and the moss greens of the sofas and ottoman sing out against this background. The floor in teal bejmat tiles (the sturdier, brick-shaped version of zellige made for use on floors) completes this blue heaven. More bejmats – this time in black – work in harmony with the aubergine walls of the corridor behind the orangery. This leads to the library, where dark-painted shelves provide a strong backdrop for a Victorian library table and a jolly yellow and green vintage stool.

Nicola revels in creating these bold splashes: ‘Colour is a magic toolbox for connecting spaces, creating atmosphere and making sense of things.’ Though this does not always mean very strong colours: ‘Rooms where you spend most time are best with a calm palette, while less-visited areas can be more intense – nice to dip into, but not where you want to be every morning at 7.30am.’