In Conversation with AKI Design House

What do you think makes a home feel truly cohesive and personal, rather than simply well furnished? 

For us, it comes down to whether the home looks like the people who live in it. You can walk into a house where every piece is beautiful and still sense that it was ordered in one go. The homes that feel personal have things in them that took time to arrive: something inherited, a piece brought back from a trip, a collection that has grown over the years. 

Cohesion is quieter. It is usually a small number of decisions repeated with care, a tone, a material or the way things are scaled, so the rooms feel related without matching. When the furniture also responds to the architecture, everything sits more comfortably, as though it has always been there. 

When starting a furniture curation project, what key things do you look to understand about a client, their lifestyle, and how they want to use their home? 

We begin by asking how our clients live. Often, the smallest details reveal the most: where they take their morning coffee, where everyone naturally gathers when friends come over, or which space the family gravitates toward on a Sunday afternoon. 

We look closely at what they already own and love, and at how the household may evolve, from children growing up to the arrival of pets. The architecture is equally integral, providing the framework for a narrative that feels connected to the character of the space, rather than imposed upon it. Establishing the budget early allows us to be deliberate about where to invest and where to exercise restraint. 

How do you approach balancing custom, vintage and new pieces, as well as existing items that may already hold meaning for the client? 

Part of our initial briefing is understanding which existing pieces our clients want to retain, particularly those with sentimental meaning. These become part of the design conversation from the outset, rather than something we try to accommodate at the end. 

Once the home's narrative is established, the balance of vintage, custom, and new evolves naturally from the architecture and how we want the home to feel. Vintage pieces bring history and character, custom pieces respond to the proportions of a room, and new pieces offer a different sense of scale, texture or restraint. The contrast between them is what gives a home depth and a sense of being collected over time. 

Alexandra House and Whitefriars both engaged AKI Design House specifically for furniture, art and accessory curation. Can you talk us through the approach to each project and what influenced the final selections? 

At Alexandra House, we were engaged on the interior design from the outset, which gave us a clear foundation for the curation. The clients wanted the apartment to feel like a warm, inviting Milanese home while responding to the plan's openness. We combined vintage and new pieces with items the family wanted to bring, so the result felt layered and collected rather than overly resolved. 

Whitefriars was a more focused furniture and joinery project within the existing home. With a leaner budget, we were selective about where to spend, using the sofa and custom joinery to anchor the spaces, complemented by pieces sourced from across Europe. 

Both projects were ultimately about the relationship between the furniture, the architecture and the way our clients live. 

For someone who has recently purchased or completed a home, what are some of the most important considerations when furnishing it, and where do you believe professional curation can make the greatest difference? 

The best time to think about furnishing is right at the start, before the first piece is bought. Once you have the keys, many decisions hit at once, and those made in a hurry are often the ones people regret. A sofa ordered before you have worked out how the living room will be used, or a dining table too big for the space, is a common and expensive mistake. 

The main things to consider are how you want to live in each room, the scale of your pieces against the architecture and which existing pieces come with you. Planning early also helps with timing, as well-made and custom pieces can take months to arrive. 

That is where we can make the greatest difference: setting a clear direction from the beginning so every purchase supports the same picture, then handling the final placement and styling so the home feels resolved from the day you arrive. 

LEARN MORE: https://www.akidesign.co/