Why this couple went for a ‘midimalist’ home after their international move to Bath, UK

When Kate Sbuttoni, founder of The Ginger Jar Lamp Co, and husband Paolo, a technology lawyer, decided that, after 13 years, it was time to make the move from their flat in MacDonnell Road, Hong Kong, back to Britain, they settled on the historic city of Bath.

“We had never lived there before but it ticked a lot of boxes for us – cosmopolitan, nice houses, good school options and it’s just about commutable, an hour and 15, to London,” says Sbuttoni.

The British couple bought their two-storey, four-bedroom house in the summer of 2023 and moved in with their daughters Emily, 12, and Sophie, nine, after a six-month renovation that they managed themselves. Constructed in the 1790s from the local limestone that gives the city its famously honey-coloured hue, the house has many of the key characteristics of Georgian architecture: clean lines, strict symmetry and tall ceilings and windows mathematically calculated for optimal proportions.

A 1970s extension created a large kitchen, dining area and utility room as well as rather too much of that era’s white exposed brick. The new owners decided to plaster over the masonry to make the open kitchen and dining area feel more connected to the original Georgian building, which they painted throughout in muted jewel tones.

Across from the olive green kitchen is the pale pink double living room, which owes its casual elegance as much to antique English heirlooms and inviting textures as to the classic arched windows and matching alcove opposite, where the house’s original grand entrance once stood. An Asian influence is also unmistakable: rattan and cane furniture, blue-and-white ceramics, classical Asian artworks, even a collection of pagodas. Naturally, many of the lamps have come from The Ginger Jar Lamp Co but others started life as vintage vases, which Sbuttoni had converted into lamps by a shop in Wan Chai.