Surrey Homes | SH42 | April 2018 | Garden supplement inside

Above left: Ally has used the same curtain fabric upstairs in a different colourway. The chair is a Dunelm find, with one of Ally’s
signature cushions covered in fabric from an old grain sack. Ally urged Jo to buy the beautiful armoire to give the room a focal point.
Above right: In one of the children’s bedrooms, Ally had the headboard upholstered in the grain sack fabric, to set off the mixed
prints of the cushions
room, to scale with a pencil and ruler – I don’t use a computer
program – then I measure all the furniture you are going to
keep and cut it out with graph paper to see how it all fits.
Then I use one colour of PostIt notes on the existing furniture
and another to indicate pieces which need to be sourced.
“You keep a record of those measurements in a notebook,
then if you wake up in the morning and want to go and do
a little impulse buy, you know what sizes will fit and you can
shop with confidence.”
Another of Ally’s techniques is to bring furniture into the
body of the room. A common mistake ‘civilians’ make is
to push it all against the walls to maximise the space in the
centre, whereas in fact, if you articulate it with furniture a
room will actually look bigger – and more appealing.
The two sofas in the snug, which Jo already had, were
recovered and restored with new seat cushions.
“Channelled feather cushions,” says Ally firmly, “it is
essential they’re channelled, or you are constantly heaving the
cushions out to plump them up.”
One sofa was re-covered in taupe devoré velvet, the other
in wool blanket plaid in complimentary tones. Both sit away
from the wall, the velvet one in front of what appears to be a
bespoke shelving unit.
“It’s IKEA,” says Ali, grinning. “I had the carpenter build a
plinth to raise it up, so it appears to be built in.”
Probably the simplest change Ally made and one of the most
transforming, was in the dining area. She turned the table
around, so it is now sitting alongside the French window,
61 surrey-homes.co.uk