Chic little courtyard

The owner of this little courtyard is a busy young London banker who wanted a really chic little exterior space to complement and reflect the style of her newly renovated terraced house in Fulham in West London.

She had used a blend of buffs, chocolate browns and off-white throughout her house and wanted a similar colour palette in her 5m x 5m courtyard. She had put fold back bistro doors from her kitchen and media room to the garden so it was iimportant there was some continuum into the garden.

The solution was to construct a super-simple space with raised beds, a handmade timber bench, some key specimen plants and good lighting using a range of colours and high quality materials.

We matched the interior materials palettewhich included walnut floors, a creamy buff composite for the work surfaces in the kitchen and chocolate buff soft furnishings by employing a similar theme outside.

The limestone paving matches almost exactly the work tops, the timber bench and storage unit match the timber floors inside and the raised beds are limewashed a pale 'donkey' colour and the handmade tongue and groove fencing and slatted trellis are painted 'peat' to match the internal walls and furnishings.

The plants includes some structural plants including a Tasmanian tree fern and a banana, mixed with black stemmed bamboo (Phyllostachys nigra), Buxus balls, an evergreen grass (Stipa arundinacea) and a mix of summer perennials and grasses.