Wealden Times | WT186 | August 2017 | Wedding supplement inside

Above left: Double doors open out from the sitting room into the courtyard where Helen has decorated the space with driftwood and
pebbles and bunting from SHOP Above right: The bathroom
something, I’m driven to do it anyway. It was the same
with SHOP. You have to speculate to accumulate.”
Also giving her confidence, one great thing
was in place – the ground floor had already been
knocked through to create one large airy room.
“I just put double doors out to the courtyard, so you
can see right through from the front door, which makes
it look much bigger and brings in light from both sides. I
also asked the builder to strip back the 1980s plasterboard
from the back left corner to see what was underneath
– and it was the original sandstone, so I’ve left it.”
Apart from that, the main structural work Helen did
was to remove the ceiling on the first floor, where the two
bedrooms are, creating a lofty vaulted space, which completely
transforms the cottage proportions. So rather than the
pokiness so often found upstairs in small houses, the top floor
of this one has the airy romantic feeling of a Paris garret.
Helen has played up this unexpected scale further by
putting in an oversized vintage metal ceiling light, found
at Ardingly antiques fair, at the top of the stairwell. On
the landing wall is another surprisingly big – and therefore
perfect – item; a portrait of Christopher Isherwood by
Fraser Taylor, Helen’s friend, that she bought during an art
sale at renowned Soho restaurant L’Escargot, in the 1980s
(when it was the most fashionable place to eat in town…).
Just as the top of the house is so much more spacious than
you’d expect, down at the bottom of it, the lower ground floor
kitchen has no basement feeling, because of the large window,
looking out onto stairs leading up to the front of the house.
Here is an area Helen has planted very boldly, with wooden
box tubs of dramatic succulents and lavender, enclosing a front
patio area with a table and chairs – a perfect spot for her to sit
and watch the urban world go by, in this close community.
The kitchen itself is very simple, with a St Leonards
junk shop table – “the only thing I could fit in” –
and Greek-style rush seat chairs from IKEA. “These
chairs have been every colour known to man.”
The design is deceptively simple with whitepainted
Shaker-style cabinets, which look more like
pieces of furniture than a built-in kitchen.
“It was built by a local carpenter – Mark Tomlinson
– out of wood, not MDF. He also did all the windows.
Helen added a new back door and tongue and groove
panelling to go over the original sandstone walls, so they
can breathe. That’s how it would have been when the house
was built. It had to be bespoke to get the right beading.”
The kitchen floor is old scaffolding boards supplied by
Hastings and Bexhill Wood Recycling Ltd., cleaned
93 wealdentimes.co.uk