Surrey Homes | SH43 | May 2018 | Restoration & New Build supplement inside

Previous pages: The double-height entrance hall, where Sara and her husband decided
to keep one wall of the original oak panelling. The large landscape painting of Villa
D’Este is by local artist and friend Alexander Cresswell This page: The dining table
and chairs are by Rupert Senior. The Fucsia pendant light over the table is by Achille
Castiglioni from FLOS
Artists seek the north light: a pure, pale reflected light that is not
subject to the shifting dazzle of the sun. The Victorian landscape
artist who commissioned the building of this house in the Surrey
Hills, an official ‘area of outstanding natural beauty’, put the huge windows
of his huge studio in exactly the right place for him: facing north.
North in this instance faces away from the landscape - straight into
the hill behind the house. So when the Delaney family moved in they
knew they had to make another large window immediately – in the space
they use as a family room - this time facing out towards the garden,
across a valley of Los Angeles scale, the sunset, and the distant south
coast. Artists may seek the north light; the rest of us seek a view.
We are at the home of Sara Delaney, award-winning and inspirational lifestyle
and fashion blogger of Notes from a Stylist so making it look as beautiful as possible
was at the top of the agenda. Sara and her husband bought the large, late Victorian
house in 2005 and immediately set about updating it, choosing to live alongside
the builders and “just do one room at a time” grimaces Sara, remembering
53 surrey-homes.co.uk