Surrey Homes | SH35 | September 2017 | Education supplement inside

This page: The cool grey of Karen’s son’s room is broken up with framed photographs and prints and splashes of colour from his
mother’s paintings
in Harrow. The walls are panelled and there is a sweet little
fireplace, enhancing the warmth and ‘snugness’ of the room.
We head upstairs and a pale blue light washes down,
bringing an uplifting and serene feeling to the climb, as
if we are heading into a coastal sky. Up on the landing,
the artworks are coloured with gorgeously calming blues
and greens. “These are my colours,” she says, adding, “I
do like a bit of turquoise.” The soft, sea coloured scheme
is particularly effective in the bathroom, where shells and
beach finds are beautifully assembled on various surfaces.
The bathroom is spacious – and this is partly due to the
ingenious way that the lavatory is partitioned away from the
bath area, making it separate, but still part of the room.
All the bedrooms are decorated in quiet ocean shades.
Gone are the children’s murals and daughter Gabby’s pink
and purple colour scheme, now that everyone is grown up.
In the master bedroom it is easy to spot which side of the
bed is Karen’s. There’s a carefully arranged collection of
treasures – like a memory corner, reminders of her travels
and of loved people. The dressing table was from her
grandmother and was originally a writing desk. “All these
little things are just objects that I love,” she says. “I love
little dolls.” The two latest are puppets brought back from
a recent trip to India. “Collecting these things is a way of
bringing the memories along with you,” she says wistfully.
At the top of the house is Karen’s office space and a
workroom. This was where her studio was when the children
were little, but it was not ideal, especially as her paintings tend
to be large and hard to manoeuvre and she had to keep taking
them up and down stairs to look at them properly. They bought
the field next to them some ten years ago and the stable in the
field was an obvious place for her studio. “It’s quite important
to have the studio away from the house,” she says, “as I come
away from the house and the domestic chores.” She pauses, then
says, “It’s sometimes hard to leave the studio and go back to the
house…”. The area outside Karen’s studio is full of plants
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