Interiors

Lidham Hill Farmhouse Near Rye

Sally and Rob yearned for a change of scenery, making the decision to move from bustling city to tranquil countryside. After a two year search, they finally found their dream home and embarked on a considerable renovation which would see...

The feeling of space is enhanced by the enormous mirror in the sitting room, that despite its size – “People said we’d never get it in,” Pippa laughs – works really well

Treasure Trove in Tenterden

Having downsized from a large Georgian property where they ran an award-winning bed and breakfast, Pippa and Mike Carter decided to move to a small cottage just down the road in order to buy a place in France. Having devoted...

Fantastic Eco Conversion

Vicky and James have converted a cluster of former farm buildings into a superb, eco-friendly 21st century family home that won them the Ashford Borough Council 2009 Design Award for Building Conservation.

Fashion Insider Transforms Georgian Hastings Property

Fashion insider Lionel Copley’s home is testament to his unique eye for design. The Georgian property is the latest in a succession of transformative projects that Lionel has undertaken across Hastings Old Town as well as being a wonderful showcase...

Victorian Grange Transformation

Philippa MacKinnon has employed her enviable organisational skills to sensitively transform her Victorian grange from a dilapidated space, untouched since the 1960s, to a chic and functional family home with ingenious storage solutions.

Vibrant Georgian Home of Ragged Rose Furnishings

Keen to embark on a new challenge, Dawn Rose has capitalized on her experience as former head of Home Buying for both Selfridges and House of Fraser to launch her own homeware and soft furnishings business, Ragged Rose, which she...

The starting point for the design of Phoebe’s sitting room was the painting by artist Emma Green which is now mounted above the fireplace

Interior Designer’s Tunbridge Wells Home

Interior designer Phoebe Oldrey and her husband Miles moved out of London in search of somewhere that could offer growing space for their two young boys.

Flamboyant and Creative Seaside Family Home

Carmel and Mick have transformed their seaside home into a flamboyant and creative space perfect for their family to pursue their musical talents.

The vibrant yellow of the kitchen walls, radiators and SMEG fridge is broken up with accents of forest green and rich red

Georgian Farmhouse Transformed into Colourful Family Home

Much is written of the Georgian house – its perfect proportions, its soaring rooms, its windows that allow light to flood into every nook and cranny.

In order not to waste space under the sloping ceilings at the end of the garage, Caroline incorporated a sizeable inglenook that runs the full width of the room

Humble Garage to Gorgeous Guesthouse

Converting a building that was never designed for human habitation into an attractive home can be a rewarding challenge.

In the formal drawing room beautiful dark oak panelling, originally from a monastery and dating from the mid-1700s, covers the walls

Medieval Hall House

The most iconic building in the Weald is, of course, the oast and it’s understandable that, once their commercial lives had come to an end, so many were converted into family homes.

Stunning Renovation

The drawing room was probably once the pub’s main room. One wall has been stripped back to the sandstone and brick and in the old fireplace stands a lovely antique Godin stove

The pièce de résistance of Amy and Adrian’s conversion is the coach house. At one end of the room are the original hay feeders and mangers, now, like all the woodwork, sandblasted and pristine

Heritage Conversion Success Story

Taking a building that has lain derelict or neglected for decades, perhaps centuries, and breathing new life into old stone and brick can be a hugely rewarding experience.

The drawing room is divided into cool elegant formal and cool elegant casual and is her main show room

Victorian Townhouse Doubles As Antique Showroom

An American catching sight of a friend’s particularly fine painting, sculpture or piece of furniture would have no hesitation in paying the appropriate compliment and casually adding ‘Waddyagiveforit?’

Holly found the elegant blue and white striped sofa at one end of the drawing room from Balmain & Balmain. The lamps and fox terrier toy, interspersed with groupings of family photographs, are from Holly’s company Duck & Dog

Renovated Period Cottage

Renovating a period cottage is always a challenge. The lives we lead are very different both from those of the 17th century villagers and farm workers for whom these homes were originally built and from the families who have updated...

The focus of the sitting room is still the original impressive fireplace, stripped back to the bare wood

Promenade Paradise

There are things in this world that go effortlessly together. Things that seem made for each other. Bagels and cream cheese, Bogey & Bacall, Champagne and caviar, Farrow & Ball – and it’s the same when we walk into one...

What is now the kitchen was the original kitchen/dining room which means it’s a great space not only for cooking but entertaining, too

Coach House Conversion

Arriving at Alli Williams’s home on the Kent-Sussex border, it’s almost impossible to remember that you’ve come to write about a house and not merely draw up a garden chair, pour yourself a glass of something crisp and white and...

In the drawing room, above the grand white faux marble fireplace finished by Hastings specialist painter Alan Kent, is a massive gilt mirror in which is reflected the room’s pièce de résistance

An Enduring Legacy

Decimus Burton was quite a gent. Born in 1800, the son of James Haliburton, one of the most significant builders of Georgian London, he studied under John Nash and designed his first major public building – Colosseum in Regent’s Park...

The state-of-the-art kitchen has been well thought out. It’s light and spacious, boasting two sets of French doors, one leading onto a balcony, the other onto a small terrace, both with a wonderful Wealden view

State-of-the-Art Country House Apartment

It’s an impressive approach to David and Louise’s apartment, through large gates and into immaculate country house style grounds. It’s situated on the third floor of a large, elegant block so we take the lift. There are stairs, of course,...

Diana removed a wall in the kitchen to create a bright and welcoming kitchen/dining room

Remodelled Victorian Home

As a six-year-old child, I had just one ambition. Not to be a train driver or super-hero, not to slay dragons and rescue damsels in distress, not to ride into the western sunset with the Lone Ranger

The double aspect drawing room runs the depth of the house and features bookshelves that span the length of one wall

Wow-Factor Wealden New Build

Philippa and Stephen’s new house in East Sussex re-ignites – should it need any re-ignition – the important debate surrounding the question of how and what should we in the Weald be building for the future

Hannah’s shop is packed with an extensive collection of vintage goodies

Kitsch & Chic Family Home

Hannah Gee’s house is set back from the road, much further back than all the others, hanging back, in case anyone notices that it doesn’t look like the rest, that it isn’t a period house

In the dining room the sizeable table was sourced from eBay

17th Century Farmhouse

Stella Hayes initially fell in love with the property's glorious garden. She has gone on to create a beautiful home.

Rob’s home is packed with interesting finds including a Philippe Starck coat stand and a kitchen table which once belonged to the chef Joël Robuchon

Art Collector’s Inspired Hastings Home

It takes many of us a lifetime to discover that treasure lies closer to home than we think, but when Robert Amstad was trying to find a property to live in a few years ago, he realised that a building...

During the summer months the open fireplace nestles behind a duck egg blue screen that Patricia has painted. She has also made the striped blinds from a Laura Ashley fabric

Boutique Bouquet

Brought up in the tropics, I have never lost my awe of the beautiful chameleon landscape in which I now find myself nor have I lost my admiration for those who work within this landscape to create gardens so at...

The living room alone is filled with countless examples of Kaffe’s work, set against the most enchanting mural, which fills the entire end wall

Kaffe Fassett’s Colourful Home

Without doubt, a visit to the Hastings home of internationally renowned contemporary craft artist Kaffe Fassett and his partner and studio manager Brandon Mably, would bring joy to even the most downhearted of people

A collection of postcards, artwork, pottery and found objects is arranged on a chest in the drawing room; the kitchen extension is a stunning, light filled room with a vaulted ceiling up to the roof

Rural Retreat

It’s a steamy and umbelliferous (as in lots of floaty cow parsley) morning in the Weald as we arrive at Wendy’s secluded house, which is tucked away from view down a narrow leafy lane. We’re warmly greeted with a “Mind...

Nick and Bella have opened up a new entrance from the kitchen to the drawing room

Walnuts Farm: Film Location and Family Home

There must be those among you that occasionally, in a quiet moment, stroll through your homes and think that, yes, after all the planning, plotting and hard work, you’ve at last got it right – on a good day this...

Next door to the kitchen, in a room that was once the dining room, a whole wall is covered with white built-in shelving filled with tins and jars, teapots, crockery, candles and glasses

Delightful Modern Country Cottage

Building new houses in traditional Wealden villages has always been a problem and one with which architects are still grappling today. Just how do you design a home that satisfies the varied needs of a modern family while ensuring it...

James has worked the house’s new interior around many of the original 60s features. “It’s such a different style for me,” he says, “and it took me right out of my comfort zone, finding things for this house.”

60s Themed Seaside Holiday Home

I’m sure we’ve all thought about buying a house by the sea – perhaps after an idyllic holiday, or a bracing walk, even just a drive along the coast. On the morning we visit James Rourke’s house, as the sullen...

The Walled Garden is essentially three spaces – two conjoined rectangular glass pavilions, one behind the other. Visitors approach between two shallow pools, strategically placed to reflect the glass portion of the building, day and night

Outside In

Less,” famously said architect Mies van der Rohe, “is more.” Arithmetical nonsense, perhaps, or an architectural truth that becomes self-evident when you see, for the first time, either his sublime 1929 Barcelona Pavilion or The Farnsworth House, a retreat he...

Focal point of the drawing room is a vast inglenook with an antique pine surround and an elegant stone fireplace set within

A Family Affair

It is a pity indeed to travel and not get this essential sense of landscape values,” once said poet Lawrence Durrell. “You do not need a sixth sense for it. It is there if you just close your eyes and...

The simple, calm tones of Farrow & Ball Light Grey complement the Shiraz rug and four poster in the master bedroom

Georgian Home

When talking about the enduring popularity of Georgian architecture one can bang on endlessly about its classical heritage, its proportion and balance and the strict mathematical rules that govern every detail but the truth is that when we see a...

In the dining room, pride of place goes to the 1960s in the shape of a slim and elegant dining table over which hang a pair of old industrial lights from an antique shop in Hastings. Behind it is a wonderful ’60s Dutch Rippen upright piano

Artist Karen Birchwood’s Beautiful Home

There is nothing quite like waking up in the morning and mumbling down to breakfast to be greeted by Radio Four at 90 decibels. The dog, in one corner, is chewing thoughtfully through a 240-volt cable while in another your...

In the front reception room there’s an eye-catching patterned sofa and matching armchair in striking brown and fuschia pink. Harmony has been achieved between pink and brown using accent colours for cushions and other details, so the garish pink becomes opulent and tasteful, and now gives the room an exotic, but cultured air

Cultural Retreat

At first glance The Cloudesley is an ordinary, if imposing, bed and breakfast establishment, with nothing much to hint that something more exotic lies within. We walk up the path past a whispering curtain of bamboo, over the inauspicious threshold...

In contrast to the kitchen, the restrained colour-palette of the drawing room is complemented by pops of colour in the form of ‘Yolanda’ a pink standard lamp created by Oeda, oriental carpeting and a cherry-red sofa and curtains

Primary Palette Country Cottage

Oeda O’Hara’s cottage appeared on its Wealden village green just in time to see the end of the Boer War, although one has the feeling that this happy event attracted its interest as little as many other world milestones over...

In the corner of the sitting room a window frames the honeysuckled steps that lead up to the garden, creating a natural picture of its own

Jessica Zoob’s Joyful Home

There are many times when visiting the houses that we feature in these pages that one is delighted by what one finds. One departs impressed, even inspired. A visit to the home of artist Jessica Zoob, however, is – and...

Focal point of the dining room is an impressive inglenook fireplace. Candles, hidden in the ledges and alcoves, add a relaxed amber glow to the room

Town & Country Home

Living the rural dream, yet within walking distance of a vibrant town community are surely mutually exclusive ideas. Paul and his wife Jane certainly thought so, until a 17th century moated property nestling off a busy Wealden High Street, reached...

A glossy piano black coffee table stands in the centre of the spacious drawing room between the three sofas

White Christmas

Steph Virgo’s house is getting dressed early for Christmas and even from the outside, bathed in winter sunshine rather than snow, it looks appropriately festive. The handsome 18th century lodge house with its stucco walls rather resembles a giant Christmas...

Claire’s kitchen is light and warm in tone, with ivory painted kitchen units and a pale limestone floor. The walls are painted pebble grey and there are panels of a flamboyant, Cole & Son pink flamingo wallpaper

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