Wealden Times | WT195 | May 2018 | Restoration & New Build supplement inside

Left: They kept all the original fireplaces as features in the
main rooms. The clock is from Coach House Below right: The
chandelier in the hall is a bespoke piece designed by interior
architect Nick Coombs and specially constructed to fit the space.
Below left: The table football table in the family room created
from the former artist’s studio
Studio Interiors, Sara set about the business of neutralising
and updating, going room by room, creating a neutral
canvas before thinking about bringing in the colour. The
spacious and imposing entrance hall was clad entirely in
dark and traditional wood panelling; the rest of the rooms
were suffering from a surfeit of seventies styling, with
flowery wallpaper, curtains and swirly, swallowing carpets.
“My husband lost his shoes at one point and we
couldn’t find them for days,” she laughs. “Eventually
we found them camouflaged on the floor.”
A Designers Guild floral panel covers what was
once a doorway leading to a bar area. “It was really
Seventies,” she says. “My parents loved it.” The space is
now more usefully occupied by the utility room. Out
too went most of the oppressive wood panelling.
“Spyros suggested whitewashing the wood, or liming
it,” explains Sara, “but it wasn’t amazing old oak, it had
come from a local church interior. We just kept this one
wall as a feature, a sort of homage to the panelling.”
The discarded wood did not go to waste. “We
gave it to a drummer friend who used it to clad his
garage and make a sound-proof studio.”