Wealden Times | WT165 | November 2015 | Gift supplement inside

Above left: Francine’s much-loved 1960s bicycle, which she bought locally, is perfect for nipping to the shops. It lives in the kitchen, propped up against a
kitchen unit built by Francine’s son Jacques Above right: A still life of ‘finds’ on the scullery windowsill
the house was to reconfigure the rooms, turning the
gloomy downstairs, made up of several small rooms
and a long corridor to the back garden, into two large
open-plan areas: an office-cum-living room, and a
kitchen / living area with French doors leading out
on to an equally considered garden. There is also a
scullery area, reached via a corridor with built-in larder
cupboard. Conversely, upstairs, she divided two large
rooms into three bedrooms, a shower room and added
a large dormer to house a new, light-filled bathroom.
This light-filled bathroom holds a clue to Francine’s
approach to refurbishment: a stripped-down ‘upcycled’
wooden door serving as a rustic side panel to the bath.
“I love to reuse things.” Other examples of Francine’s
ingenuity and clever re-use of materials include the
brick paths in her garden, made using bricks from the
knocked down internal walls and a garden table topped
with left over Fired Earth tiles from the shower room.
It’s clear that she is both practical as well as having
great visual sense. After gaining a degree in Fashion and
Textiles she worked for many years as a fashion illustrator
and stylist in Milan, before working as a buyer for a
stylish country store in Suffolk and then setting up
a shop of her own. More recently she has become
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