Wealden Times | WT165 | November 2015 | Gift supplement inside

Above: personal touches such as family photos, favourite books and paintings add interest to the carefully decorated and designed bedrooms. The whole ceiling
has been painted white, where once the beams were painted black – giving a sense of light and space
its elegant high-backed bench from France. In the
corner stands my favourite piece, a huge and chunky
distressed oak bureau and on the wall nearby is a
painting of one of the couple’s daughter’s pet goats.
Up an almost secret staircase, the master bedroom would
be unrecognisable to the former owners. Once the wealth
of beams were painted a gloomy black which brought lower
a ceiling already not the highest. Now the entire room,
including all the woodwork and the exposed chimney
brickwork, is a pristine white, almost visually lifting the
ceiling and creating a space of freedom and light. On the
Victorian-style bed is a lovely handmade spread from Love
Lane Vintage. “There was really no room for wardrobes so
I used a big old shutter and a screen – both from Three
French Hens – to hide the clothes,” says Caroline. Next
door, daughter Maisie’s room is a delicate blizzard of pink,
from the walls to the pretty patchwork spread and quilt.
Her Victorian style bed is particularly pleasing, one of the
more unusual I’ve seen. It comes, of course, from Ikea.
Although many period properties boast contemporary
bathrooms, even here Caroline has resisted and gone for
a traditional touch. Seriously clever use of space has
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