The House

When we bought the house it was in an ideal condition: it looked rundown but, underneath, it was sound. Most of the work was, therefore, cosmetic. The drawing room was given pseudo C18 panelling and the library, previously a bedroom, some ‘Georgian’ shelves as though from a townhouse. The kitchen got a recycled quarry tile floor and its components moved around to look like an old farmhouse. Bathrooms were given freestanding baths with old French tile splashbacks and we discovered huge, log-burning fireplaces in three rooms.  Victorian floorboards were removed to show much earlier oak and elm boards underneath - a real find, like the beams in our bedroom and the gothic door in a spare room.

Nearly everything was painted with Farrow & Ball in tones of string, stone, mouse’s back and pointing - colours which are calm and light-enhancing. There are family portraits and furniture from both our families as well as items bought at auction including a huge Italian walnut table in the library, two teak Burmese earth spirits, a life-size Chinese wooden deer and a whole fleet of decoy ducks from America. People tell us it’s getting like Snowshill, a National Trust house where the owner had finally to move out to fit in his Japanese armour, medieval musical instruments and penny-farthing bikes. They could be right.