Wealden Times | WT230 | July 2021 | Education supplement inside

This page: In the master bedroom Victoria has used clothing as art, displaying fabulous embroidered and sparkly vintage pieces on
her side, and Hawaiian shirts and baseball jackets on Matthew’s. The contents of the couple’s day-to-day wardrobes are also on display
on an open rail, with a stack of colourful woolly jumpers on top. The peacock chair was a Facebook Marketplace find – it cost £7
There is no strict theme – flowers, still life, wild animals,
birds, beloved pets, landscapes, buildings, bucolic scenes,
winter scenes, Her Majesty the Queen, and the Virgin
Mary all feature (and I suspect I have left some genres out)
– and equally there is no set measure of, er, excellence.
Some of the pictures – a mix of original paintings
and framed prints – are lovely things in their own
right, while others are gloriously bad. There are some
marvellous examples of amateur home painting-fromphotographs,
while others are fabulously kitsch, such as
an early 1960s Woolworths print of gliding swans.
I was particularly impressed by the hanging on the
stairs – which I know from experience can be hard to
do – and when I asked Victoria how she goes about it,
she was characteristically modest. “I didn’t plan anything.
I started at the top left and just kept going…”
Finding myself drawn up the stairs, by looking at
the pictures (I was particularly taken with those swans)
we headed past the Room of Doom, which is used
for storage – presumably a lot of it the collection of
artworks waiting for the next big hanging session.
Next to this is the bedroom of little Jess, four years
old and the happy resident of one of the nicest children’s
rooms I’ve ever been in. It is the same mix of elements
as the other rooms – quirky finds and a mini picture
wall – all specifically chosen for this particular resident.
With an adorable floral fabric sausage dog on the bed, a
protective felt elephant’s head on the wall over it, Moomins,
mermaids, donkeys, bunting and a badger cushion, it feels
like you are inside the illustration from a children’s book.
One detail of this room is also reflected in the
other two bedrooms on this floor – with appealing
vintage clothes displayed as part of the décor. In
keeping with Jess’s age, a classic smocked dress, a
dear little red blouse and a quilted jacket.
Next door, in seven-year-old Benjamin’s room, where
two red-sprayed metal gym-style lockers (from IKEA)
give it a groovy male atmosphere, the clothing/art is
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