PAINT specialist Joa Studholme and interior designer and house surgeon Suzy Maas came together to provide a radical, low-budget makeover for a tired two-bedroom basement flat in Kensington. Previously valued at £400,000, by property expert and local estate agent Eve Wilton of Aylesfords, what would this flat be worth after its expert makeover? Read on…

When Joa and Suzy visited the flat in a small cul de sac off Kensington Church Street, they discovered a dowdy, dated property. Joa says: “It was so Eighties, full of rag-rolling, skyandclouds trompe l’oeil on the hall ceiling, gilded cornices and stencilling everywhere, with hideous, highly polished orangey furniture. The doors and cupboards had tarnished brass fittings, the fireplace was a morbid black marble, and the sofa was covered in blue satin brocade.”

Now the flat is light, bright and fabulously contemporary, and appears much larger. A great result for only £15,000. How did they do it? Joa works for paint maker Farrow & Ball. Her job is to advise homeowners on paint colours, finishes and wallpaper combinations.

“If someone asks for ‘neutral’, I look at their clothes for clues,” she says. Joa herself wears Chinese Blue and Breakfast Room Green vintage garb. She charges £90 an hour or £500 per day – with the flat, she took only two hours to work out an entire colour scheme.

Suzy is managing director of The Final Touch, which renovates properties for sale or rental. She does everything from large structural changes and clearing clutter to redecorating, or replacing the garden fence. She charges £75 for a consultation or £475 a day. Suzy draws as much on her own experience of multiple house-building and moving as on her training as an interior designer. Now, propert ies she tackles sell for up to 15 per cent above their original asking price.

At the flat, Joa zipped through the rooms, painting over the furniture and woodwork with Farrow & Ball’s specialist paints. She skilfully blended colours to give an illusion of larger spaces and, very cleverly, used strips of wallpaper to back bookshelves to save time and money.

Suzy, meanwhile, whizzed through spring cleaning, substituting dingy light fittings, cleaning white carpets and making a huge impression with chocolate-brown faux suede re-upholstery, and pink satin cushions. A small and charming French antique mirror, costing £40, was painted white and placed above a bureau to add a classy touch. She has an impressive contacts book and can save a client hours by knowing just where to buy the right item.

Generous pinch-pleated curtains in rich mocha faux suede were a bargain at £8.50 a metre. New door furniture in fresh glass was delightful, as were the modern stand a rd lamps. She didn’t buy any large furniture, instead she painted what was there. “The one thing we needed was light. Just exchanging dusty, heavy nets for cream Cosmo blinds gives a pretty diffused light,” she says.

Joa also went for light, but not by using white, as many of us would. “You can’t use overt white in a basement. You have to go with what nature gives you, otherwise it looks wrong,” she explains. “And don’t paint ceilings white because your eye is drawn to the contrast, and take wall colour over the cornice to give height.”

SHADES of the colour palette used in the hall were brought into the drawing room to create continuity. The Farrow & Ball paints, with their famous clotted cream, tactile chalky finish, provide their own expensive, contemporary effect. She chose Off White, with a contrastingly darker tone on the bookcase and an even darker one on the fireplace. “The walls, skirting and window frames are the same colour.

It makes a room look bigger.”

A similar deft approach gave the gloomy master bedroom an uptodate, Swedish look. Its cold lavender walls were exchanged for the warmth of Pale Powder, a calm shade of soft blue/turquoise. The cupboards were painted to ” disappear” and the 1980s yellow-with-ahintof-blue furniture transformed by Off White. Shutters were painted with the same Pale Powder and Suzy hung pretty white muslin strips over the windows from discreet rods. The wall behind the bedroom shelves was treated to the same trick with strips of wallpaper, this time in romantic Ivy Paper.

The small, dark bathroom’s makeover was masterly. No one without Joa’s knowledge would have used the striking Silvergate ( washable) wallpaper, Light Grey paint on the woodwork or the ceiling’s Slipper Satin. “Large patterns work very well in small spaces, and the woodwork in gloss is very contemporary – as well as practical, and a contrast to the matt wallpaper. When there’s no natural light, it works to use stronger, darker materials. But this bathroom opens onto the hall and is too small for a colour change.” So she used the same shades.

The hallway, like so many London flats, was long, dark and narrow. Now it is an exciting space, thanks to the clever use of neutral colours – from Slipper Satin to Mouse’s Back. “The lobby is darker, so that the eye reads the lighter hall as bigger and brighter,” says Joa.

Suzy added the finishing touch with economical cream runners from Habitat laid on the wood floors. “A lot of house doctors put in oat carpets, calico curtains and magnolia walls,” concludes Suzy. “But they lose the personality and oomph of a property, which can mean that it doesn’t stand up to the competition.”