Episode 6 - Margate Café

In episode 6 we’re off to the seaside. That should be fun….. or in fact horrendously stressful!

What a week. Starting off with a paint catastrophé wasn’t high on either of our wish lists. But it did add a bit of humour! And for me - no wallpaper or taxidermy - oh my! Although we had a difficult time on Michelle’s couch, we are both proud of what we achieved. In the time given and budget that we had, we put so much sweat equity into pulling it together as one design and space. We constantly had the client in mind, and love that they enjoyed the space.

Below is a small breakdown of some of our thoughts and ideas behind our processes.

Fran and I were paired together for this challenge in a girls vs boys extravaganza! We were tasked with transforming Charlie’s - a café on Margate’s beachfront. Popular by day with tourists and beachgoers, vibrant in the evenings with intimate tables and a local feel. Charlie’s - a family run business, named after the owner’s pet pooch, had opened quickly at the beginning of lockdown. The cafe was largely covered with the previous occupants’ Indian restaurant decor, which didn’t necessarily fit with the new owner’s aesthetic. We had a steep climb to take this establishment in a new direction, rebranding and redesigning was at the forefront of our objective.

We were asked to split the cafe between us into equal-ish areas to design. Fran did some great research on seaside towns and discovered that art deco was a popular choice in Britain’s coastal areas. The movement became synonymous with tourism and escapism and was largely adopted by much of coastal Britain, transforming seaside towns. And so, Art Deco became our design theme.

Margate’s Turner Contemporary is a wonderful gallery named after JMW Turner, who famously painted various sunsets of the seaside town. I took his paintings as colour inspiration for our cafe. As with any renovation, we chose to keep some of the existing furniture to help with budget. We were slightly constrained with our choice of chairs as the owners had requested seats with backs and arms, knowing that would be an expensive swap, we chose to keep the original red chairs to save money and added a couple of tweaks to jazz them up.

We were really keen to rebrand Charlie’s, so an overhaul of the outside, giving kerb appeal was our initial thought. We chose an eye catching mint colour - reminiscent of Claridges green - for the front of the building and I worked on rebranding the exterior sign. We would’ve loved to incorporate the ice-cream hatch more successfully however time and budget were against us!

Frannie made a spectacular job of designing the front part of the interior of the cafe. She transformed the vestibule area with new linoleum for the floor and a repaint and then eliminated the confusing facing wall with a series of arches, echoing the 20s theme and carrying our colour palette around the space.

My idea for the back of the cafe - which was largely unused most of the time - was to make it a destination for evening dining. The front of the cafe was usually packed in the day as those views were too good to miss, so there had to be a reason to entice customers to the back. I wanted to run with our Art Deco vibe and create a kind of intimate Speakeasy that could be separated off for evening dining or private hire. I wanted to include our owners - as they were all mega characters in their own right and were what made Charlie’s, well, Charlies! I took my love of bespoke down a different path, creating destination tables for each of our big personalities. The cutaway doors with peepholes were an attempt to separate each table and as a nod to the days of entering a Speakeasy, where you could be identified through the hatch or whisper a secret password…just a bit of fun.

The dark café tables were in decent condition so we chose to cover them in marble vinyl, in order to brighten the space. We changed the legs to gold to fit in more appropriately with our decor. Fran sourced a bunch of vintage events chairs. Wildly in need of new life, I reupholstered them all in a mix of coloured vegan pleather that fit into our palette.

I wanted to reclaim the bar as an area that the owners and customers could sit at and have a drink, rather than just a service hatch. I added a lip onto the bar to extend it. We added new lights everywhere, that could work from day to night.

We worked tirelessly and did our very best to bring magic to Charlie’s. Some pics below of our transformation.