Wealden Times | WT176 | October 2016 | Kitchen & Bathroom supplement inside

Above Left: The headboards are Rowan Plowden. Francesca bought the old painted toy box serving as a joint bedside table from a
stall in Lydd. The ceiling lampshade is from Hunter Jones. The wall behind the beds is painted in Stiffkey Blue by Farrow & Ball.
The hurricane lamps on the chest are from Dunelm Above right: Over the free-standing bath in the in new bathroom is a picture by
Francesca’s artist uncle, Nick Maddison.
The majority of walls throughout the downstairs are
Farrow & Ball Ammonite but a great feature of the
ground floor is a superb ‘wooden’ wall that runs from
the front to the back of the house and is clad floor to
ceiling in sanded, unpainted scaffolding board, effortlessly
giving the whole area a lovely beachy, driftwood feel.
Pièce de résistance in the kitchen area is a stunning
central island designed by Francesca, built by H&B
Wood Recycling and incorporating a huge hidden
kitchen storage area and lit by two industrial-style lights
that were being thrown out of a café in St Leonards.
In one side wall is a real ship’s porthole which Francesca
bought from a stall which appears and disappears Brigadoonlike
in Hastings Old Town and is run by a bloke called John.
At one end of the island is virtually a wall of glass, with
doors out into a magical shingle garden. At the other end are
parked two tractor-seat stools which serve as extra seating to
a circular dining table, joining a matching set of stylish steel
chairs that only Francesca could have found at Dunelm.
In an existing extension is the business end of the kitchen
– and as Francesca “doesn’t do fitted kitchens,” it’s all
natural wood shelving, a work surface made by H&B Wood
Recycling, a superb full height cupboard made by Francesca’s
father from old wooden tractor trailer doors, and pretty blue
curtains covering a dishwasher, freezer and washing machine.
At the end is a former loo, now a wetroom which means guests
can come in straight from the beach through the kitchen
door, down the tiled-floor kitchen and into the shower.
On the landing is a four-foot-high framed poster of Gary
Cooper from McCully & Crane, one of a pair of lobsterpot-y
string lampshades from made.com and a smart blind designed
by Francesca with ticking from Merchant & Mills.
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