|
Written by Administrator
|
|
Sunday, 21 August 2005 |
A legal career beckoned for Lloyd Rooney, until he opted to open a furniture shop instead. At his home in Camden, Fiona Rattray examines the evidence of his personal style
Sitting on his sofa, chatting about his passion for interior design, it's hard to picture Lloyd Rooney as a lawyer. With his sparkling blue eyes and laid-back style, he just doesn't strike you as a brief. But if it hadn't been for a chance offer, that's what he would have become.
Rooney had already done the law-conversion course (his degree is in social science) and, after a flirtation with drama college ('I wasn't any good,' he grins), decided to return to the legal profession. A job offer came on the same day he heard about the lease on a Chelsea shop. One way led to security, the other uncertainty, but ultimately there was no contest. 'Whenever I put a suit on I felt like I was acting,' he says.
With his partner, choreographer Craig Revell-Horwood (now a bit of a star thanks to his pithy judging on Strictly Come Dancing), Rooney launched a furniture store, Revelloyd, specialising in 'modern with a slight ethnic, retro twist'. Now on London's Upper Street, the shop's warm, dark palette is something of a hit. So popular is it that Rooney has begun to take on interior-design work. His clients are often single men who tell him: 'I haven't got any style, create me a house.' Not bad for a bloke whose Brighton upbringing was 'not at all style-conscious'.
Rooney's home is in a prettily painted street in London's Camden. It's one of those Victorian terraced homes that looks tiny from outside, but which has been opened up to reveal more roomy proportions and characterful twists inside. The couple added the 1870s fireplaces, and new kitchen and bathrooms, but inherited original features, such as the folding wooden doors between front and dining rooms. Varnished plaster walls and an overhead, under-stair mirror in the hall make the most of every scrap of daylight, while outside every inch has been colonised with greenery and fascinating found objects - a bull's skull brought back from Seville, or metal signs like the one retrieved from a New York skip, which reads Gin Lane.
Rooney's personal taste is cheerfully un-nerdy. Ask him who designed the curvy aluminium and tan leather office chair - a gift to Craig, to help with writing his new dance book - and he shrugs, though he knows it's in 'that 1,000 Chairs book'. (It turns out to be Knoll - a 1965 design by Charles Pollock.) He loves buying (as with most shopkeepers, I suspect the job is an excuse to keep shopping after the house is full), knows what he likes and can spot a bargain. The smart rosewood dining table and six chairs are Sixties Danish, picked up for only £900 on a buying trip for cowskin rugs. Other retro finds - many of which came from nearby Camden Market - include the elegant dark-wood drinks trolley, and purple-glass chandelier. On the ethnic side, he delights in showing me an unusual, pointy-topped Moroccan box, inlaid with bone and nickel, and a piece of sculpture that originates from the roof of a temple in Burma. But his heart belongs to the off-white rug woven from Nepalese nettles: 'I've never been so in love with a rug in my whole life.' Now I ask you, is that a solicitor manque talking?
· Revelloyd, 124-125 Upper Street, London N1 (020 7226 8501; www.revelloyd.co.uk)
Source |
