Interior designer Antonia Burnett opens the doors of her stunning Dundee house to Beautiful Homes readers

When Antonia Burnett visited Dundee to view her current home she fell in love not just with the property but with the city. Nora McElhone visited her beautiful West End house to find out more

Antonia hails from London and lived in Aberdeen for 10 years before making the move to Dundee. Having studied interior design in her early 20s and worked with names such as Osborne and Little and Zoffany, she was captured by Dundee’s sense of style.

“I had heard quite a lot about Dundee as the UNESCO City of Design and with the V&A coming we came down to explore. I had never been to Dundee but I fell in love with the architecture – it was so beautiful,” she explains.

The property in question is a Victorian end terrace built around 1875. It sits proudly above a street in Dundee’s West End, an area that really captured Antonia’s heart when she viewed the house. Since then, along with husband Simon, she has embarked on a journey of discovery as they peel back layers of wallpaper and history, taking six-year-old son Rudy along for the ride.

“When we bought the house in 2016 the same family had been living in it for 50 years, and it really was untouched, which was great for me,” she says, standing in the grand hallway, “it is still a work in progress. We have lifted 50-year-old carpets and found ancient newspapers underneath. I have really tried to be sympathetic to the period features of the property – I wanted the house to sing.”

During the renovations, they discovered signatures that decorators had left behind over the years, including one from 1896, giving a glimpse into the building’s story. “I love living in an older house thinking that there has been all that history here,” says Antonia.

The welcoming living room is a case in point, unfortunately the original fireplace has been removed but the beautiful ceiling rose and cornicing remained. The impressive proportions of the room come with their own challenges, “Large rooms are the hardest to design,” she explains, “I chose a darker colour for the walls to bring the space in – it was painted a very pale green on top of layers and layers of wallpaper.

The TV sits unobtrusively on the wall nearest the door, a deliberate choice on Antonia’s part, “So it wouldn’t be the first thing you see when you walked in. There would have been a beautiful fireplace but has been taken out so I put a bookcase there to replace it. Because it’s such a big space you need something to draw your attention. Everything I have tried to do is in a classic style with more contemporary colours.”

Also on the ground floor is a room which Antonia now uses as her studio: “A doctor lived here at one point and I think this would have been his consulting room so like the idea of it being a working room again.” She has chosen Paris grey paint in a mid-shade for the walls with a paler shade above the picture rail. The soft, warm tone makes the room a calm and welcoming work space.

Moving through to the kitchen, the interior designer describes the room when they arrived: “There was nothing in here – there were no units, just a sink in the corner.” Now, there is a beautiful family kitchen which Antonia has chosen to furnish with simple, shaker style units and wooden worktops. Finishing touches such as a zinc-topped table and jar filled with Tunnocks Caramel Wafers add a sense of personal style to the room.

Bringing a property like this back to life is no small task and Antonia admits that there were more than a few challenging moments. “When we first moved in we all slept in the one bedroom,” she recalls, “We got the back bedroom finished first and it moved on from there. It has been like discovering a new part of the house as each room gets done.”

Even the garden revealed its own secrets. Once the undergrowth was cleared, they found a Second World War air raid shelter which Antonia is keen to excavate if possible.

On the first floor, the master bedroom was originally the sitting room. When it was built there was still a view of the Tay as the buildings across the road weren’t there yet. The stunning, double aspect room makes the most of being on the end of the terrace and is flooded with light. It also benefits from having held on to its original fireplace, and this is where Antonia found her inspiration when decorating the space. “The colour on the walls is Farrow and Ball’s mizzle – dreich might be the local equivalent,” she laughs.

One of the biggest upheavals in the renovation was moving the bathroom upstairs, as there was no plumbing on the first floor. Luckily a small bedroom provided the perfect space for a family bathroom which is decorated in stunning shade Inchyra Blue by Farrow and Ball, inspired by the house of the same name between Dundee and Perth.

Throughout the house, Antonia has chosen to paint much of the woodwork white. “The Victorians loved to paint everything dark,” she says, pointing to the living room door, “these doors have been painted by a master craftsman to look like walnut.” The effect is impressive but the overall result of all this dark wood can be oppressive.

With the move to Dundee, Antonia has found her work for interior design business Saving Graces growing, with current projects including the redesign of a city centre cafe and the interiors of the new lodges at Piperdam. Keen to retain the balance between old and new, celebrating her home’s history while creating a welcoming space, Antonia is certainly rising to the challenge.