Surrey Homes | SH60 | October 2019 | Kitchen & Bathroom supplement inside

Previous pages: The open-plan kitchen, dining and living area
is now wonderfully spacious and bright, a far cry from the dark
interior the family moved into Above: Anna Marie found her
beautifully crafted Mark Wilkinson kitchen on eBay. “We had to
drive to Maidenhead and take it apart to move it, I then had to
reconfigure it to fit our house,” she says proudly Right: Reclaimed
brick slips have been applied to the wall behind the dining table
to give an original exposed wall effect to the new extension
Like the salt from a crashing wave or the soft white
sands of the Perth coastline, it’s the sense of laidback
Antipodean style that first hits you as you
walk through the door of Anna Marie Smith’s sunny
family home in leafy Horsell Common. From the subdued
yet elegant colour palette, the use of natural materials
and indoor planting, the blending of the exterior and
interior, Anna Marie has created a home that instantly
reminds one of the family’s former life in Australia.
Adventurers at heart, Anna Marie and her husband
Andy left the UK 11 years ago, along with their two small
children. They followed their dream to move to Perth, a city
they had fallen in love with when they were both travelling
the world; Anna Marie as a back-packer and Andy as a
professional cricketer. The couple built a life ‘down under’
clawing their way onto the competitive property market
through some savvy house refurbishments. The kids were in
school and Andy had made a name for himself within the
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