Surrey Homes | SH33 | July 2017 | Interiors supplement inside

Above left and below right: Karen has framed a postcard of a
work by a Egon Schiele in an ornate frame on the mantelpiece
Above right: A collection of coral, feathers and candles is
gathered together in a tray on top of a buttoned pouffe by
George Smith
herself from one splendid Victorian flat to another,
which had that extra bedroom and the sea view.
“In Richmond I couldn’t afford to upgrade to a two
bedroom,” she says. “It was going to be an extra £500,000
for another room and I didn’t want to move to a less
lovely part of London to get it. Then I was chatting to
my hairdresser, who told me she and her partner had
just been looking at property in St Leonards.
“I hadn’t even heard of it, but I started looking and two
days later I put an offer in on this flat. It all felt meant to
be. Once I came down and started looking I was really
specific – I quickly knew it could only be one of the 25
houses in this terrace, on the ground or first floor.
“I looked at seven or eight of them, but the moment I
saw this one online I knew immediately. It needed a lot of
love, it had broken windows, it hadn’t been looked after
for a long time, but it was definitely the right one.”
The work to be done on the flat was mostly putting right this
lack of care – overseen by Project Manager Carl Ross – there
were no walls to knock down or move around. The layout,
with the kitchen very cleverly arranged along one side of the
long wide hall the front door opens onto, was already in place.
“I only had to paint it and put up shelves,” says Karen,
“but I gutted the bathroom and started again.”
59 wealdentimes.co.uk