Surrey Homes | SH110 | March 2024 | Kitchen & Bathroom Supplement inside

Top: Leopard print lines the back wall of
another bedroom, contrasting with floral
velvets and a dusky pink rose bedspread
Left: The landing is one space that’s been
decorated with pure white walls. the perfect
background to show off Mark’s moonlight
paintings and his father’s work alongside
a table of copper sculptures by Adaesi
becomes a thing of mystery and beauty.
“Someone gave me a sewing machine
in lockdown and everything I can’t do I
hand to Wendy May who knows what
she’s doing. I’m just making it up!”
Next door in the main bedroom, a
lovely big space, is another Sarah Jane
special bedspread, in printed velvet,
of course. “I bought seven metres of
fabric with a printing fault on eBay,”
she says, “and it was made into a quilt
using a blanket for wadding and an
old sheet for the lining, with enough
material left to make curtains for one
of the bedroom windows.” In here is a
particularly special online find – a roll
of original 1920s wallpaper, which Sarah
Jane had put up by an expert, Annemarie
Wrigley. “She showed me how to put
wallpaper up,” says Sarah Jane, “and
how to use it on furniture.” The leopard
print element in this room is a rare
Roberts radio, another eBay treasure.
After completing the full house
tour, we head back down to the
sitting room, where it is deliciously
easy to get comfortable on the
broad choice of sofas and chairs.
All of them are generously
be-cushioned and covered in velvet,
except for one amazing chair upholstered
entirely in needlepoint, which was done
by Sarah Jane’s Aunt Susie. Being handy
with a needle clearly runs in the family.
We settle in here for Sarah Jane to tell
me about her latest project, an album of
songs inspired by and in tribute to ten
of the great female singer songwriters.
Called The Sisterhood, it blends decades
and genres, with names spanning from
Billie Holiday to Joni Mitchell, Janis
Joplin to Sinead O’Connor. “I’d had the
idea for the project and I’d bought all
the biographies,” says Sarah Jane, “then
with Covid I couldn’t tour, so I had
time to work on it. Mark and I wrote
the lyrics and Tony Remy (my right
hand man) and I wrote the music and
turned them into songs.
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