Posts tagged tolix

So TOTA has opened, finally! Now most people have had a few weeks opportunity to visit themselves I can blog about the design and branding.

So how did we go from this…

and this…

to this…

Let’s start at the beginning, how did Colporter get this gig? Well it is all thanks to this blog. This time last year I blogged about Tooting and what I love about it. Someone posted that blog to Streetlife where Victoria and Gary (The TOTA owners) read it. Victoria had never read a blog before but got a bit sucked in and read back through my archive of posts. She decided that we had a similar aesthetic and that she would get in touch to talk about the interior of their planned restaurant.

My husband and I went to have a dinner, cooked by Gary of course, where they told us the plan to bring a neighbourhood restaurant to Tooting. We were so excited to get some Tooting goss, let alone to get the job to pin a design down.

Many coffees and Pinterest boards later I came up with a mood board which had to try to marry up two people’s needs and wants for the restaurant. Victoria fancied a smart Farrow and Ball paint job but Gary wanted industrial, urban, warehousey feel.

What about budget? What about living with some parts of the unit from the Spice Lounge days? All considerations. And when would the lease exchange. It came in handy on occasion that I am also a property lawyer as well as an interiors addict!

Working from the outside in.

TOTA Exterior

We knew from day 1 this place had to have major kerb appeal. Tartine is nearby and nice looking, but the rest of the block is a bit bland and we wanted to stand out. We had to “arrive” in style. The vital ingredients were as follows:

1.  Smart logo
2.  Wow Factor shopfront and paint job
3.  Upper floors to match
4.  Window boxes
5.  Awning
6.  Black and white tiles.

Check out my little pen and ink drawing on the mood board. Spookily like how we ended up.

TOTA Main Restaurant

Lighting plays a big part in TOTA. Gary loves factory lighting so I took him off hunting for vintage goodness at my favourite antiques markets.

I got them rewired and now they look like this.

Mixed in with some smaller french disc pendants and some bare bulbs on different coloured flexes and spot lighting. And the “chandelier” we had “Mark the Spark” make us.

Floor

We wanted a stripped wooden floor but as Spice Lounge had a perfectly serviceable, albeit cherry wood, engineered wood floor we thought we might be able to make do and paint it grey. As luck would have it the builders noticed that the original floor was underneath, intact up to the bar where it was a patch of concrete. We kept both, the concrete although rough and a bit unfinished looking is industrial and therefore right up our street!

Walls

As with the floor, the strip out revealed some cool original features…the red wall, the green steel and the bare brick wall. Playing right into the Industrial Brief!

Seating

Tolix Style Chairs are having a moment. Comfortable and complementing the look, I sourced these reproductions from a contact I use for some of my vintage stock.

The Banquette seating pulls the scheme together in a modern vibrant green colour but traditional chesterfield style.

Bathroom

So glad we decided these loos were not liveable withable. I have seen worse but the new ones are much more TOTA.

Continuing the accents of green in the lighting and seating, the tongue and groove in the bathroom is Calke Green from Farrow and Ball with the Limehouse crackle retro metro tile from Tons of Tiles. Yes, we know metro tiles are ubiquitous but we all loved them and they are so reminscent of Tooting Broadway and the Northern line we just had to!

The F and the M signs on the loo doors are from the wonderful vintage website The Vintage Wall and from an early numberplate from a vintage car. The Men’s mirror is from a little boutique I know*. The Ladies’ mirror bought on a Colporter antiquing trip with Victoria.

*that is my euphemism for TK Maxx. 

The Bar

The mood board and our Pinterest Board had an image of a bar that Gary just loved. Our clever Project Manager had it copied in mild blackened steel.

Check out those corners.

Little Details

A french sign.

Vintage tins for the bill.

An optician’s poster…

Some vintage office trays from Northcote Road Antiques in TOTA green and grey are a different way of displaying the pastries.

And finally…all the little branding details which I will blog about next time. Until then give it a try and see the design for yourself.

Coming soon…the branding materials…

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Look at these. Nuff said. Coming soon to Northcote Road Antiques Market.