| Your personal background. |
|---|
Every Prime Minister likes to make his - or her - mark on their new abode.
But it's been quite some time since that abode was Number 10 Downing
Street.
Not since Gordon Brown, has a PM and his family set up home behind that familiar black painted
door.
All that has changed, however, with the arrival of Rishi Sunak,
his wife Akshata Murty and their two children Krishna, 11,
and Anoushka, nine, who are, we are told, comfortably ensconced in the flat ‘above the shop' - one
that became their part-time home when Mr Sunak became
Chancellor of the Exchequer in February 2020, until his dramatic
resignation in July.
Now, courtesy of a warm behind-the-scenes feature in the glossy pages of society
bible Tatler, we've been given a peep behind the curtains of the PM's
reclaimed home.
[img][/img]
Family man: Rishi Sunak, his wife Akshata Murty and their two children Krishna, 11, and Anoushka, nine
[img][/img]
Comfy: A Challis Interiors bedroom. Akshata chose the services of Challis
Interiors, a small company which also refurbished the Sunaks' home in Yorkshire
And what fine curtains they sound, having been made and installed
under the attentive eye of a husband and wife interiors team, hailing from the town of Richmond in Mr Sunak's own North Yorkshire constituency.
There are scant past photographs of the private rooms
at Number 10, but those that do exist (circa the Thatcher era) are decidedly chintzy.
But, Tatler's writer Anne McElvoy tells us, now
it's a riot of ‘exquisite fabrics', ‘fine
damask' and velvet sofas in jewel colours.
The Prime Ministerial couple are said to be intent on opening up Downing Street and putting their own stamp
on what unfolds there, and the interiors are all part of that vision - all strictly funded from their own pocket, we are
told.
It was all very tiredÂ
As the daughter of an Indian billionaire, worth millions in her own right, Akshata, 42, could
have presumably looked anywhere for design inspiration.
 But rather than finding her own Lulu Lytle (the upmarket designer Boris Johnson used to furnish
the flat above No 11), we learn she chose the services of Challis Interiors,
a small company which also refurbished the Sunaks' home
in Yorkshire, the far more palatial £2million Kirby Sigston Manor.
So, how did No 10 look when the Sunaks first moved
in? ‘It was all very tired,' John Challis, who fitted
the new soft furnishings (his wife Alice made them), told Tatler.
Recent residents have included Sajid Javid, Philip Hammond and George Osborne, who, despite having the full array of furnishings services of the family business - the Osborne
& Little interiors company - at his fingertips, apparently left the
latest design team underwhelmed.
[img][/img]
Plush: Curtains have been installed by Challis Interiors.
John Challis said No. 10 ‘was all very tired' when the Sunaks moved in
‘Let's say the blinds were not of the level we would put in. And, in fairness, it was an era
where everything was very matching and co-ordinated and times move on,' says John.
Ouch.
Tony Blair famously swapped flats with his Chancellor Gordon Brown in favour of the more spacious offering
of neighbouring Number 11, which has four bedrooms rather than just
the two at Number 10.
But like Mr Brown, Mr Sunak and his wife have apparently embraced the smaller
home, which comes with access to an array of state and working rooms.
Intriguingly, they did their refurbishment while Mr Sunak was Chancellor, lending
credence, perhaps, to the theory that a longer-term game plan was
afoot.
Having been worried about life in a ‘goldfish bowl', the glamorous new ‘First Lady' is
a woman on a mission - albeit one that has remained,
until now, off-radar.
In the Tatler profile of ‘No 10's new chatelaine', we are told the
mother-of-two wants to put a new stamp on the public face of life at
Downing Street, opening up the state rooms more and, more pointedly, to use the
couple's connection to Yorkshire to bring ‘more of the north to Downing
Street'.
And in her choice of upholstery services, she has got off to a flying start.
‘We made long, fully interlined curtains for all five windows overlooking the garden, hand-pleated and held back with
heavy co-ordinating tassels in red, gold and the ivory of the damask,'
John Challis tells Tatler.
‘The ornate cornicing was hand-gilded, as it would have been originally, and a rug was commissioned
to almost fill the room.'
Akshata, he adds, was ‘very involved', adding: ‘She is also not
afraid of getting stuck in and helping either.'
Most of the rooms in the flat have window seats, each upholstered to complement the colours of the opulent curtains, which hang in front of two sets of blinds - a sheer, unlined Roman blind, then a heavier
blind behind it.
Scattered on the velvet sofas are cushions Challis likens to a ‘work of art' - using
fabrics with traditional ikat-based design (an Indonesian dyeing technique)
and ‘richly woven woollens'.
The husband and wife team, who worked in London before basing themselves in North
Yorkshire, told Tatler the refurbishment project, initiated in 2020, was far from glitzy.
Indeed, their company website is a decidedly understated affair,
focusing on their craftsmanship.
 They will doubtless be thankful that Mr Sunak has graduated from a self-confessed reliance on Ikea flat-pack furniture in his younger days.
However, he's still a high street man. ‘We love John Lewis in our house.
Who doesn't love John Lewis? What's not to like?' he declared in an interview in August.
In November, Mr Sunak, who is worth an estimated £200million, revealed that Chancellor Jeremy
Hunt would be using the larger flat above No
11, explaining that with three children he would appreciate
the space (Mr Sunak's eldest daughter is now at boarding school).
The full profile of Ms Murty is available in the February issue of Tatler, on sale from January
5.
my site - www.furaffinity.net |
| Your feedback on this profile |
|---|
| Recommend this profile for User of the Day: |
I like this profile |
| Alert administrators to an offensive profile: |
I do not like this profile |
|
| Account data |
View |
| Team |
None |
|
