Surrey Homes | SH40 | February 2018 | Wedding supplement inside

Previous pages & above: Amy has hand painted her unique and colourful designs, sourcing a good deal of her furnishings from
Margate. “There’s some interesting things here. It’s quite junky and there’s a lot of mid-century stuff around the place.” The bright
pink sofa came from the Yard in the Old Town
The sky is leaden and it is pouring with rain as I
drive past the quaintly named Sea Bathing Hospital,
then along the seafront towards the giant shed
on the beach that is the Turner gallery. We’re in not-sosunny
Margate where an incoming tide of creative energy
is steeping the town in art and contemporary culture. In
drab late winter sadly it is mainly hiding indoors. By the
time I reach Amy Exton’s house in Cliftonville I’m more
than ready for a little colour. Amy opens the door and I
come out of the rain – and into the blue. A bright and
brilliant cobalt blue. It is like stepping from grey old Kansas
into technicolour Oz. Oh my! As Dorothy might say.
The dazzle continues as we head out of the blue hallway
and into the kitchen diner. On one side there is a black and
white monochrome kitchen area, a sensible practical space,
but on the other it’s definitely playtime. Kitsch, glam, and
joyous, this is Acid House meets Hilda Ogden (except that
Amy is far too young to be that familiar with the eponymous
style queen). There are lions and tigers and leopards (not
bears). Opposite the kitchen there’s a huge mural of a beach
scene and on the adjacent wall and ceiling she has created
and hand painted her unique and colourful designs.
Amy studied Fine Art at Central Saint Martins before
becoming a set designer for fashion and music videos in
London. She has designed and decorated this house to be
a location. Appealing as a set for photo shoots and videos,
it is also a proper, functioning home. Amy explains: “I
wanted to get into interiors and I lived with someone
who had a location house in London – it was on a 1930s
scheme, basically because they bought it from someone
elderly and they hadn’t updated the decor, so it was all
original.” She was able to experience how they let it out
45 surrey-homes.co.uk