The whole space is painted in white and pale grey throughout, with small touches, such as the curvaceous blue sofa tucked under the sweep of the curving staircase and gold legged furniture that hint at the colours scheme carried throughout the house.

It has an appealing art gallery feel too, with artworks sprinkled liberally through the hall: a chair that is moulded to the shape of someone sitting in it, a Jeff Koons style balloon dog, and a huge sculpture on the wall depicting ice lollies in various states of being eaten.

“Big pieces work in here,” says Lauren: “I really want a giant balloon sculpture going right up to the roof by the stairs.”

It is certainly the perfect space for a statement. Lauren follows my gaze up towards the soaring double height ceiling in the entrance hall. “It was the height, the space, the light, that I liked,” she explains.

This sounds like a fair comment – but takes on greater significance when you know she was imagining the height and space when she made that decision, because she bought the house off plan – before it was built two and a half years ago. A brave step for most, but as a property developer of some standing, Lauren has a special gift for visualizing spaces from floor plans.

Property development was not something that she had originally intended to do. Lauren’s training and background is in corporate IT, but when she had her daughter, Bella, almost ten years ago, she decided to go into the family business.

The Malins Group was founded by her father Malcom Atkins back in the early 1970s. Back then – and really until very recently – the industry was very much run by men. Lauren’s first job was to sell – and make a profit on – some properties that were proving hard to move.

Building a workforce of mainly part-time working mothers, she managed to turn the project around and they sold them all. “At the time it was very unusual to offer part-time flexible office hours,” she explains. “And there were very few women in the industry. I make sure that everyone has a part to play and it’s very fluid, so the whole team gets involved at certain times.”

Lauren’s enlightened approach in this very fast-moving sector has paid off. She is now the managing director of the company – and a finalist in the Businesswoman of the Year awards. In keeping with her philosophy of supporting and encouraging women in business, she is also a patron of Aurora New Dawn, a charity dedicated to ending violence against women.

Under her care, the company is fostering a unique and interesting approach with the projects they take on these days: “We specialise in the conversion of buildings with an interesting history or provenance, including period properties, mews schemes, warehouses and industrial units. Our developments draw on the history of a building, creating a brand and preserving the integrity of the space.”

An example of this is an apartment development the group have recently finished in Clapham; an old metal works, rich in architectural and industrial details: “These are period features of the future,” she says, explaining how such features were preserved and celebrated in the refurbishment. It is these details that make the schemes stand out from the rest. Still called the Metal Works, the apartments were sold within two weeks.

“I work with a historian who helps me research the background of the property,” she explains. “We also have a fantastic CGI designer in Serbia. He uses real pieces of what will actually be in the space. We make big blow-ups of them and the guys working on site can see what the properties are going to look like as they are building them.”

This way several months of marketing can be done in advance, which also means that the building is launched – and sold – as early as possible. “We do the show flat just before the launch and it’s amazing how it looks identical to the CGIs.”

When it came to purchasing her own home two and a half years ago, Lauren was very well placed to put her experience and talents into practice and collaborated closely with the developers to ensure that she got the look and feel exactly right.

“I worked with them to choose the flooring, the carpets, the doors – I wanted a high gloss finish, not wooden doors and I knew just which carpets I wanted because we had used them in one of our developments.”

The interior finishes were just as she wanted prior to moving in – except that she had nothing to move in with. Looking around, it is hard to imagine that she arrived with only a few sticks of furniture and some bags of clothes. Lauren smiles: “I’ve never had a modern house before. I had come from a Georgian property. It was so different I decided to start from scratch.”

For Lauren, furnishing the house has been an evolutionary process and one that is still in progress. “I did three phases of furnishing and tackled it in stages,” she explains. “You get interior fatigue if you try to do it all at once. I think it’s important to have a break and then come back in with fresh ideas once you’ve lived in the space for a while.”

The walls in all the rooms are white, or pale neutrals, which emphasises the airy spaciousness of the house. There’s just one wall in the kitchen that has been wallpapered. “In my last house I used a ton of wallpaper, but it was a very different house, the rooms were much smaller and more detailed. Smaller spaces suit wallpaper. In a bigger space it’s easier to just do feature walls.

Phase one was the kitchen and the main bedrooms: “The lived in spaces that we use every day.” The kitchen was installed by the developer, so Lauren’s scope was more limited in here, but she has plans to update it. “At some point I’ll have the kitchen cupboards wrapped in a mix of concrete and then accessorise with something metal – a burnt gold colour would work.”

She has used gold throughout the house, but as an underscoring accent colour, which, together with shades of blue in the soft furnishings, pulls the whole of the interior together. The occasional and side tables around the house, for example, have all come from separate places and were chosen at different times, but they are united by their golden legs and all are in a similar style. The repetition of just a few colours and shapes in this way anchors and unifies the scheme.

There are two smaller rooms on the ground floor at the front of the house – a study room and a cosy media room – which are both painted dark blue. “Smaller rooms take dark colours well. It makes them more intimate.” These rooms keep to the same colour scheme as the rest of the house, but very effectively reverse it, so that white and pale grey become the accent colours.

The dining room was tackled in phase two and, next to the entrance hall, is the focal point on the ground floor with views directly onto the garden. Lauren has continued the white, gold and blue theme in this room, but there’s an emphasis on opulence in here and gold accents dominate. She bought the dining chairs at Koket, but the table was bought separately in the King’s Road.

A delicate looking sculpture on the dining room table forms a centrepiece. “It’s actually made from concrete, so not as delicate as it looks,” smiles Lauren. “It is by a friend of mine called Maria Bassett.”

Lauren explains how she chooses furniture, both for clients’ schemes and for this house with her strong and individual sense of style. “I never follow fashion and won’t be pigeon holed, which keeps everything fresh.”

Many of the lamps and objects in the house are bespoke, made by up and coming, and often completely unknown artists and designers. Expensive originals mingle with purchases from art.com and 1stdibs. “My father is a ‘proper’ modern art collector,” Lauren says. “I have a few pieces, but if I don’t love them it doesn’t matter how much they’re worth. I get quite a few things from the Affordable Art Fair.” She adds firmly; “I like what I like.”

“To me, furniture is a kind of art – and I’m looking at the piece itself, not the labels,” she says. “It can be a challenge to find exactly the right piece for the space. The sofas in the sitting room came from France and the rug is on loan, while the company make the bigger one to go there. Rugs are always a difficult one; there’s not the breadth of choice unless you spend a lot of money.”

Lauren has found an ingenious way around some of her sourcing issues, however. She has begun to design and make many of the interior items: “We draw them up with the CGI. It’s so useful if we can’t find something in the right colour or size and it’s a great advantage to have the right maker contacts. I wanted a geometric ottoman – the one in the lounge is the first one that I made. We may well have a section on the website for bespoke pieces soon.”

The company is keen to expand the interiors side of the business. “Furnishing a house is never a chore. I can have a good eye, but also good business acumen,” she says. “Everyone has a budget and it is a sign of bad planning when the budget is exceeded. I’ll often look at TK Maxx for items like blankets and bits and bobs – they are good value and good quality and there was that big trend for lots of cushions, but they’re not used so much now.”

Upstairs the feeling of light and space continues. The bedrooms are furnished with neutrals and monochromes, with the epitome of this the huge bathroom that serves the master bedroom. It is in the middle of the house, with the bath situated in the centre of the room.

“I like to sit in the bath and just look straight through to the garden,” Lauren says wistfully. This is where she thinks up ideas and plans for future projects. She has been debating whether to install a swimming pool or a gym here… “But after this summer it’s going to be a pool,” she laughs.

Lauren is not one for resting on her laurels and the property market never stands still. Aside from expanding into interiors, they are actively looking for acquisitions. “We are always looking for more boutique and unique sites and investment opportunities, and have requirements for interesting office blocks and commercial sites.”

So, if you are sitting wondering what to do with that beautiful old warehouse you’ve inherited, The Malins Group might be just the people to talk to.