Wealden Times | WT177 | November 2016 | Christmas Gifts supplement inside

Left: Rather than use up previous space with wardrobes, Christine stores her clothes on rails in the bedroom - and the study - and
considers them part of the decor. A bookshelf, painted grey, makes a perfect shoe display Right: The needlepoint chair is one of a
pair, with the other one in the kitchen. The gold and cream striped curtains were from the antiques yard in Courthouse Street, in
Hastings Old Town. Instead of voiles, Christine used extra long fringing from Wayward in St Leonards
time in Hastings, that led Christine to the Sussex coastal town.
We decide to continue our conversation while exploring
the rest of the house. The layout of the tall, narrow building
means that there are two rooms on each floor, larger rooms
to the front, overlooking the old High Street, and smaller
rooms to the back, looking out over rear gardens and
roofs. Across from the kitchen is what Christine calls the
lounge, furnished with a luscious, curvy, Italian suite.
Along one wall is a series of black and white Sassy Luke
prints, representing literary titles and characters, such
as Kafka’s Metamorphosis and The Dog Woman from
Sexing the Cherry by Jeanette Winterson. The artworks
are slightly sinister and work well with the gun-metal grey
paintwork, blackened floorboards and the 1920s copy
of an antique death mask peering up through the glass
of an occasional table. Light floods the room via a huge,
curved sash window, helping to keep the demons at bay.
Light also shines down from the skylight at the top of the
stairs, illuminating the narrow stairwell, which continues
on up to the office and bathroom on the next floor. The
stairs themselves are bare, dark boards, finished simply
with a neutral, jute runner, cut to fit. It’s a no-fuss look,
which fits perfectly with this solid Georgian interior.
Just as each room in the house serves as its own gallery
space, so do the walls of the stairwell... culminating
with a huge, blue painting at the top of the stairs.
“I call it The Blue Man,” says Christine. “I brought
him back from Greece... and it most certainly counted as
excess baggage,” she says, before pointing out the blurred
image of a skull at the foot of the painting. It’s as if it
were commissioned for the space, it fits so perfectly.
“I never take ‘stuff’ with me when I move, but I always
take my artworks,” says Christine. I’m not sentimental
about ‘things’ but I love art.” She admits that everything
113 wealdentimes.co.uk