Tour an English Country Home With Midcentury Miami Beach Style

See how a designer found on Houzz opened up a 1950s bungalow and used white, gold and pastels to elevate the look

Mitchell Parker July 7, 2024

Houzz Editorial Staff. Home design journalist writing about cool spaces, innovative trends, breaking news, industry analysis and humor.

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Not much had been done to this England homeowner’s 1950s bungalow. Its compartmentalized rooms and dated style needed major updating. The homeowner, a single retiree who frequently travels but likes to entertain when she’s home, gave designer Sara Slade several wish list items to get started: an open layout, more natural light, an improved visual and physical connection to outdoor areas, and midcentury Miami Beach style.

Slade, whom the homeowner found on Houzz and who uses Houzz Pro business software, took down several walls to create a party-friendly open layout. A glassed-in addition with retractable doors off the front of the home fully opens the kitchen and a sitting area to the outdoors. Curved white kitchen cabinetry with gold details channels a classic Miami Beach vibe. Pastel blues, greens and pinks in the decor and artwork add splashes of soft color.

Sara Slade | Interior Design

Photos by Jonathan Bond Photography

House at a Glance
Who lives here: A single retiree who frequently entertains
Location: East Cambridgeshire, England
Size: Two bedrooms, two bathrooms
Designer: Sara Slade Interiors
Landscape architect: Sylvia Newman Garden Design

To create spaces better suited to entertaining, Slade took down several walls and rearranged the floor plan. She moved the kitchen to a more centralized location. She also built a glassed-in addition with a sitting area off the kitchen to bring in more natural light and add views and a connection to a front garden. Retractable glass doors can fully open up to create an indoor-outdoor feel.

A large island serves as an entertaining hub for sitting and chatting, and for mixing and serving drinks. A cooktop sits in the island, allowing the homeowner to face guests when cooking. “The owner really wanted this to be somewhere she could throw a party,” Slade says.

A durable solid-surface countertop provides a worry-free prep and serving area. “It’s just brilliant for the entertaining factor, because if you’ve got people standing around putting their drinks down, you just want to be able to wipe it up at the end of the night,” Slade says.

The white cabinets are custom and feature gold details and curved ends, creating a classic midcentury Miami Beach look. Touches of pastel pinks via stools and nearby seating soften the palette.

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Sara Slade | Interior Design

Off the kitchen is a living room with a lounge area, a dining table and two bars. A built-in bar on the right echoes the kitchen cabinets. A freestanding vintage bar in a shade of blush sits nearby.

To delineate areas in the now open floor plan, Slade added a slatted wood divider with a circular cutout. Rugs and other furnishings also help define spaces. A separate lounge area to the left of this living space includes a TV. “We really wanted to create zones so it wasn’t just one big, open space,” she says.

The rear wall off the living area features bifold glass doors that bring in natural light and connect the interior to a paved outdoor entertaining area. New skylights also flood the home with sunlight. Curtains and blinds can be controlled from a keypad or an iPad, even when the homeowner is traveling.

The flooring is cork in a washed-out tone that channels the Miami look the owner was going for. “It’s easy to keep clean; it’s very hard-wearing; it goes down really well on underfloor heating, so it kind of has so many good properties to it,” Slade says. “Also, it’s a sustainable product, which is even better.”

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Sara Slade | Interior Design

Dashes of pastel pinks, blues and greens in the furnishings and artwork form a consistent accent palette throughout the home.

Watch now: See more of this remodel on Houzz TV

Sara Slade | Interior Design

The built-in bar in the living room has a wine fridge, a serving area and two storage cabinets on the end for larger items like a mop and a vacuum cleaner. Mirrored backing reflects light and helps create the illusion of more space. Glass shelves display the homeowner’s collection of vintage glasses and bar ornaments.

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Sara Slade | Interior Design

The main bedroom features a wallpaper mural of Paris streets that matches a dressing gown the homeowner and Slade used as inspiration for the pastel color palette. The wallpaper contains soft and subtle touches of pink, blue and green. A pink headboard and tray and mint green pillows complement the accent wall.

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Sara Slade | Interior Design

Here’s a peek at the homeowner’s dressing gown depicting a map of Paris and featuring the pastel colors that inspired the home’s accent palette.

Sara Slade | Interior Design

With the owner’s vintage bar in mind, Slade found this dressing table for the bedroom. It folds up into a travel trunk, and while it looks old, it was bought new. Doors connect the bedroom to the back garden and patio. Glass shades on the light fixture complement the home’s accent palette.

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Sara Slade | Interior Design

A wardrobe area in the bedroom adds a luxurious touch and has tons of storage and two mirrored sides. “You get the image that the wardrobe just goes on infinitely,” Slade says.

Sara Slade | Interior Design

In the main en suite bathroom, pastel pink tiles and grout create a playful style. “There was much debate over whether we would do the grout in a different color,” Slade says. “And I was like, ‘I think the grout needs to be pink.’ It’s a slightly different pink, which makes it even more interesting to look at.”

The owner now has a place she looks forward to returning to. “It’s a great space,” Slade says. “I know she’s had lots of lovely family occasions here, friends gathering, parties. She’s had music here. She’s really used the space well, and it’s somewhere she loves to come back to. It really is home for her.”

Slade used Houzz Pro business software to help manage this project. “One of the things we used that was really helpful, which is on the Houzz software, is the Clipper tool,” she says. “And this Clipper tool means that we can clip things from different websites and different brands that we use and put them all onto a board. And it means the owner can go back in and pick out the things they want for the house.”

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