Wealden Times | WT226 | March 2021 | Interiors supplement inside

This page: Susan created the central island from two old dressers
with a new wooden worktop on top. Storage in this room includes
an old white meat safe, sitting on the counter, with a set of
vintage industrial drawers, painted black, on the wall above it.
The wooden floor used to be the old gym floor from Rye College
school. The stripes of yellow and red are from the court markings.
“I deliberately didn’t have them matched up,” says Susan
places, heading up the stairs with a very characterful central
‘runner’ of bare wood, where carpet would once have been.
The sitting room has a real parlour feeling, with a
splendid chandelier and wall sconces and a fine glassfronted
bureau that belonged to her parents, displaying
more of Susan’s collections, including a Shelley tea service
left to her by an aunt. Adding character are an unrestored
‘raw’ chaise longue, from eBay and a gorgeously weathered
French buttoned chair from Adi at Hoof Brocante.
Susan’s appreciation for the patina of well-used items is
displayed again on the half-landing with an old painted
cupboard from a school science lab, topped with a lovely
flower painting she had bought for the shop (lucky I
didn’t spot it in there…) and two blue enamel jugs.
The generous proportions of this house – a feature
of this slightly later era of Victorian terraces – is
beautifully apparent on the large first-floor landing,
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