Surrey Homes | SH57 | July 2019 | Summer supplement inside

This page: Laurie and Sol added the new upper floor to give
them a master bedroom with its own bathroom
which forms the entrance to the kitchen area – it seats a casual 14 people. “It’s built from
off-cuts from Champagne barrels,” says Laurie. “A carpenter made it for us for £800.” Whilst
the whole – huge and amply cupboarded – kitchen was made from old pallet boards.
Continuing the inventive scheme, the cocktail bar is an old carpenter’s bench
and a row of vintage gym lockers makes a brilliant pantry, with genres of food
items filed in each one. Like many of the one-off items in The Bath House,
both of these came from eBay. “Sol is eBay’s best friend,” says Laurie.
But while eBay may be Sol’s go-to site, Laurie is the queen of Google – and
the amazing suppliers she has found on there had me giving her (entirely
unsolicited) career advice that she should start a business as The Resourceress.
She can find anything, at a brilliant price and, more often than not, locally – the
couple bought their Arne Jacobsen chairs from the traders in Hastings Old Town
and a selection of light fittings from 20th Century Filth in St Leonards.
The fish-scale style copper splashback behind the kitchen sink was the result
45 surrey-homes.co.uk