Wealden Times | WT244 | September 2022 | Winter Interiors Supplement inside

Previous pages & above: In its previous incarnation as a shop, the property was divided into lots of little rooms. Calum
and Jen opened up the space by knocking through walls and adding decorative arches and Corinthian columns
“
No one wanted to buy it,” Jen says of the beautiful
period home in Horsham that she and husband
Calum have lived in for the last ten years.
“It was built in 1911 as a dairy shop and stayed as a
shop until quite recently. The front was the shop and
then behind it was all divided into smaller rooms.
“There was a wall by the stairs,” says Jen, “and a wall
across the sitting room and dining room. We opened it all
out and put in the arches.” The couple lived in the small
front room – rechristened the bar – while the structural
work was done. “It was so dusty,” she laughs.“The
ceilings had to come down as well as the walls, so it was
a huge mess.” It is now a huge space, no trace of the
division between shop front and back rooms detectable,
although they did have to re-lay the floorboards on the
ground floor to make them fit the space properly.
There are arches and splendid pillars where the walls
once were. “I wanted the arches,” says Jen, “and Calum
wanted the pillars, so we went over the top and had both.”
Everything is painted dark grey – in the style of the queen
of darkness, Abigail Ahern – that includes the plasterwork,
radiators and fire surrounds. “So much easier to paint that
way,” remarks Calum, “you don’t have to worry about the
edges, and there’s no fiddly cutting in to do.” The colour is
Bowler Hat by Dulux. “If you can’t get hold of it,” says Jen,
“the nearest colour is Farrow & Ball’s Down Pipe.” There
is a grand and rather theatrical air here, the dark colour
adding another layer to the drama. “The guy who did the
plasterwork and pillars works in film,” Calum explains.
They were determined to have a large island unit in
the kitchen, but were told that there wasn’t room, but
Calum was undaunted. “The carpenter said this won’t
work, but I drew it out on paper.” The bespoke unit they
chose – with a worksurface in quartz from Crown
35 priceless-magazines.com