Surrey Homes | SH42 | April 2018 | Garden supplement inside

Above left: A chair in a spare bedroom recovered with a patchwork quilt made by Jo’s mother. Above right: Ally had bookshelves
built in the guest cloakroom and papered the walls with Jane Churchill’s March Hare wallpaper in the stone colourway
not pointing out into it and back into the snug.
You can see immediately what a difference this would
have made to the flow of energy, with the length of the table
stretching out appealingly from the vantage point of the
kitchen and just inviting you to sit down.
The biggest makeover was to the sitting room, in its almost
separate wing, which had become one of those dumping
ground rooms you can close the door on and forget about.
Jo’s extensive collection of was scattered around the house
in “random stand-alone bookshelves” as she puts it, so Ally
commissioned some shelves as the focal point on the far wall
of the room, framing the piano which all the family play.
“I wanted to make this the special room,” she says. “As it’s
at the other end of the house from the high traffic rooms I
thought we could have a little bit of fun with a big pop of
colour, although it is still a calm haven, opening onto the
garden.”
The result is an elegant room, with a great sense of occasion
conveyed by her choice of Farrow & Ball’s marvellous peacock
green Vardo. And you’d never guess that all the furniture in
there, apart from the antique sideboard, which Ally pinched
from the kitchen (replacing it with a bespoke dresser) is
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