Inside... Baroque follies

After minimalism, maximalism. But a taste for the opulent needn't cost the earth. Designer David Hare used artistic trickery and a sense of theatre to create a baroque fantasy in a London flat. Lesley Gillilan reports

Designer David Hare is currently creating a stark, minimalist interior for a client in Chelsea. In the past, he has worked on steely grey, hi-tech office spaces. But his preferred living environment is as far removed from contemporary modernism as black is from white. His west London flat - on the ground floor of a large, early Victorian, stucco- fronted townhouse in Paddington - is a tribute to the retro romantic and richly ornamental baroque style. Stuffed with marble and gilt, chinoiserie, classical figures, antiquities, layers of texture and a tapestry of warm colours - all clothed in a light film of atmospheric dust - it's a modernist's nightmare.

"Minimalism relies on perfect proportions, faultless lines and the clever use of colour," says David. "But for me, it's as welcoming as an operating theatre. It doesn't inspire me and I couldn't bear to live in that sort of space." His own flat has more in common with a suite of rooms in a time-warped and faintly shabby stately home. You would think it belonged to an incarnate 18th-century gentleman who had furnished the space with the souvenirs of a Grand Tour of classical Europe. But the aura of opulence and wealth is as impressionistic as a theatrical stage set.

David, a journalist before becoming a freelance interior designer, specialises in paint finishes and ageing techniques - ranging from marbling and crackle- glazing to tea staining. And his home is a showcase of what can be done with MDF, paintbrush and pigments, a few tufts of wire wool and a reasonably low budget. He describes the look as "an amalgam of 18th-century French and Italian styles" - as seen in "aspirational" English country houses 200 years ago - and it's been achieved by amalgamating authentic, but slightly knackered, antiques with creative recycling and artistic trickery.

The faux panelling in the living room was copied from French originals and made from MDF and thin ply-wood; the reclaimed parquet flooring was bought in an architectural salvage yard. The Italianate plaster friezes on the walls at the rear of the hall are, in fact, old cupboard doors coated with a casual wash of lilac and white emulsion, which picks out the decorative timber mouldings. The mellow stone-work in the hall was achieved with creamy Artex paint, scored with squares to give the impression of stone block.

The kitchen chairs are repro Louis XVI, circa 1950, bought cheaply in a second-hand shop. Originally, they were covered in chocolate-brown velvet but, instead of re-upholstering the seats, David recoloured the material with deep blue paint-on dye. "It makes the fabric quite stiff for a while, but the more you sit on them the softer they get." Like much of his disguised reproduction furniture - the age of the pieces doesn't matter to David as long as the proportions are right - the woodwork is coated in a thin slick of his favourite Paynes Grey paint, rubbed down with wire wool. "It creates a lovely French look," he says. Another Hare trick is to soak cheap cotton damasks in cold tea - a technique which dulls the surface shine and fakes age.

David has taken some liberties with the Grade II listed building's architectural origins. Neither the panelling nor the Napoleonic empire-style marble fireplace were part of its 19th-century heritage. But when David began work on the flat, it had been stripped of most of its period features and done up in Sixties mode. The ceilings had been lowered, the mouldings and cornices removed, and the floors were covered in wall-to-wall swirly carpets. David restored the plasterwork, installed French limestone floors - "very popular in 18th-century Europe" - and reconfigurated the layout. You now enter the living room through an elegant pair of glazed doors which once belonged to London's East India Club.

Ironically, David's efforts to re-antiquate the interior met resistance from Westminster Council's conservation office. "They were unbelievably difficult," he says. "When a property is listed, it protects everything that's there at the time, even if it's a pink acrylic bath, and I had to get permission to remove things that didn't actually belong here."

The bathroom, now furnished with an enamelled roll-top tub, is all paint- effect marble, including the ceiling. The kitchen was inspired by the "extraordinary colour combinations" - mauve, aubergine, yellow and vibrant red - seen in a Palladian villa in Italy. The bog standard, fake-wood plastic kitchen units have been distressed with Unibond, a solution which, David says, is both chip-proof and wonderfully paint-treatment-friendly.

In the small back bedroom, where David's French alcove bed sits behind a canopy of sumptuous but faded red silk and velvet, the variegated aquamarine walls have been treated to the rough, rubbed-down look of an unrestored Venetian palazzo - an effect achieved with green pigment acrylic wax "dashed on" with a dry brush.

Aside from paint treatments, the Hare look relies on crowds of antique ornaments, gilded table legs, rows of old books, a lot of terracotta busts (cheap plaster moulds washed with Paint),and marbled statues and, it seems, more chairs than a doctor's waiting room.

"Not everyone's brave enough to go for this look," says David. "They see the sludgy, olivey green on the walls and think it looks rather gloomy, but white can look terribly drab unless you've got wonderful light. By using layer upon layer of colour and texture you can disguise quite a lot of architectural faults." And while the Dyson vacuum cleaner and galvanised aluminium dustbin look terribly out of place in this environment, a haphazard stack of battered picture frames and bits of old timber appear to be deliberately arranged.

In fact, the distressed look is so forgiving that frayed damasks, broken glass lampshades and even dog hair, courtesy of Squiggy, David's King Charles spaniel, add to the effect. "This style of living is very practical if you've got kids or pets," says David. "The more knocked around it gets the better it looks."