The Great Interior Design Challenge

Streatham Art Deco Flats (4x6)

: 12, 2017

In the last of the quarter-final heats, two designers go head to head for that coveted place in the semi-finals. This time, the amateur designers have two rooms to transform in rather glamorous 1930s art deco flats and they are each handed a living room and a guest bedroom. The designers both have £2,000 and 48 hours across three days in which to complete their challenge. They see their workforce doubled to two decorators and two builders and they find out how hard it is to have one room finished and judged on day two. This is particularly challenging for one of the designers for whom a possible asbestos outbreak means work is halted in one of the rooms. Will they complete their rooms on time, and how will they adapt their design plans to comply with the art deco brief they have been handed? Will a black skirting board be a step too far for the clients and 'mock croc' be too feminine for the 'Gentleman's Club' they had asked for? Meanwhile, the other designer might be going too far off brief with a butterfly-inspired effect which dominates heavily throughout the living room. Both designers are given a creative challenge to cleverly incorporate into their overall schemes and architectural historian Tom Dyckhoff takes us back in time and shows us that 1930s Streatham, meaning 'Hamlet on the Street', was one of London's most forward futuristic glamorous neighbourhoods.