Wealden Times | WT163 | September 2015 | Education supplement inside

This page: In the master bedroom at the front of the house, the bed
is tucked into the bay of the window, maximising the space available
and allowing space for the en suite bathroom. The scheme in this
room is dominated by a large wardrobe – a cloak cupboard from the
House of Lords that was given to Annette by an aunt. Annette has
painted it bright green. “I was going to paint the whole room that
colour but I chickened out and just kept it to the cupboard.”
becomes clear as we look around that curtain making is
just one of Annette’s talents. She has also created many of
the artworks on the walls too; there are some unnerving
and quirky dolls’ heads in glass frames, some framed pieces
using paper sculpture and then there’s the taxidermy.
The back garden had not been touched when she bought the
house. Worse, the dividing wall had blown over into the garden
and it all looked a tricky undertaking. Annette has transformed
what could easily have been an unusable slope with a series of
terraces, all meticulously worked out and edged with sleepers.
At the top there’s a lovely little bespoke shed (‘shed’ seems too
mundane a word as it looks more like a summerhouse). “The
shed was once a Victorian greenhouse,” she says, “but it was in
a bad way. When the wall came down I used some of the bricks
to build it. And it doesn’t have steps up to it, she says, but a
practical ramp so that I can put the lawnmower away easily.
The planting in the garden is as carefully thought out
as the house and uses a refined and careful palette of
colours. “I’m just as happy with plain green,” smiles
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