When Susan Wild returned with her family from New Zealand, her main thought was to find a home and settle back into life in England as soon as possible. She chose to house hunt around the pretty Kent town of Faversham, famous for its Medieval marketplace and unspoiled charm. “Faversham seemed like a good place. I have family here and didn’t want to make too much change for the children, but there didn’t seem to be much around at the time.”
In the end she found a former office, viewing it the day before it was to be sold by auction. “It had no services, no door – and the stairs were next door too. I had to make a quick decision as I was desperate to settle somewhere.”
Anxious to put down roots and make a home, she entered the auction for the door-less, stair-less place with no real plan, except to find somewhere for them to live. Taking on a property conversion is interesting to contemplate, fun to read about, and fine if you have money and a plan. In this case it was a total act of bravery.

She went on to win the auction – and then found herself with a big empty building and no clear idea of what to do with it. “I normally have a vision,” she says, “but not with this one.” It was potentially an overwhelming project, but Susan was determined to apply her considerable skills as a trained designer – albeit in fashion – and make a family home from the improbable space she had just bought. “We started by knocking a hole in the wall to make a door, putting in electrics and installing two staircases. We did it all while I was homeschooling my youngest child and renting nearby for six months.” The rebuilding process was a long one; turning an office space into a residential property is a complete transformation, luckily Susan is a dab hand at metamorphosing buildings. Before moving to New Zealand they grew a huge colonial barn out of a bungalow (as seen in this magazine a few years ago). “I must like doing up houses,” she laughs. “We turned that ’50s style bungalow into an American looking house with a turret.”

This is far from being a lowly countryside bungalow. We are in the heart of Faversham and looking at a beautiful, high ceilinged Georgian building. Here the changes have been mainly internal, but equally transformational. From an empty shell with no outdoor space (or access) Susan has managed to magic a feature-full four-bedroom home with a garden.
“There was no garden at all,” Susan explains. “We made the garden by taking the roof off the garage, and although it has become a four-bedroom house, because of the two staircases, it can be split into separate dwellings – a three-bedroom house and a one-bedroom apartment – if needed,” she adds. This clever separation means that the main bedroom suite is in the front of the house and the three children’s rooms are in the back. There are even two kitchens, so that the now adult children, when they are home, can live almost independently.
The house number is written boldly in the glass above the front door – no longer a bland 19a, now stylishly called 19½. Once on the inside, looking onto an ornate and silvered mirror, in an Alice Though the Looking Glass way, this number reverses to be reflected the right way round.

The ground floor is a large, open plan space, lined with tongue and groove, that Susan has painted in a textural pale grey, a cool neutral that is warmed up by the rich brown floorboards, cowhide rugs and fur throws.
The small kitchen is a continuation of this space, but zoned from the living and dining area. The original floorboards continue, but the tongue and groove on the walls above the kitchen units becomes thinner and darker, the vertical lines on the walls echoed by the creases in the curtains under the kitchen counters. Again the colour scheme is grey, with the chrome and steel of the fridge and oven making it feel more industrial, but with an aged, vintage touch.
Texture and muted tones take over in the large sitting room, pink and beige mix harmoniously – beige on the walls and pale pink in the soft furnishings. An inviting chaise longue with pink velvet throw nestles under the beautifully etched half glazed triple French doors that open into the main kitchen dining space. Splendidly unfitted, the main kitchen echoes the smaller one – a gleamingly industrial range and dishwasher are offset by a rustic kitchen table and soft gingham curtains have been hung instead of conventional kitchen unit doors.

Utensils hang handily from an open shelf above the units and on the opposite wall Susan has designed alcoved shelving that gives the impression of a kitchen dresser. Under these shelves is a carpenter’s bench, with some useful wooden veg boxes attached. The mix of old wood and modern chrome shouldn’t work, but it does in here, possibly because it is mixed in with elegant furniture – armoires and chaise longues. The atmosphere is over-archingly French and it all feels as if it’s been here forever.
“There’s nothing standard in here,” she says, “I’m not fond of fitted kitchens. It’s industrial, but mixed with old objects and French bits on the shelves – an eclectic mix of things.” This array of items comes partly from her love of objects for their own sake, but also because she is an immensely practical and hands-on person – and anyone who uses a kitchen and likes to cook or entertain knows that you need a fair amount of equipment – and the more attractive and well-used your gadgets and tools are, the better.

“I love cooking. I do less now that the family are grown, but,” – and this is possibly the reason for the swanky number 19½ etched above the front door – “once I finished renovating, I ran a supper club at the front of the house.”
Aside from the decorative finishes, it’s the details that add up to the whole here. Susan has chosen wonderful radiators – antique looking, and attractive in their own right, but repro, so that they actually work and aren’t all furred up with rust and grime. She has also managed to create the most remarkable, and very cost effective, flooring solution. She made a stencil and then was able to apply paint in different colours across the floors, sealing it so that it would be long lasting and easy to clean. Genius.
I’m trying to decide whether the colour of the walls at this end of the house is grey, or green? “Grey,” Susan assures me. “It’s just that there’s so much garden greenery near the window that the light, when it shines through, makes the room seem greener.” The diffusive, soft green wash is very effective, especially as the colour will change with the time of day and the seasons.

“I have an allotment,” she continues, “and love to grow cut flowers there.” She has an impressive collection of healthy looking houseplants too, some used to create curtaining effects at the windows, helping to bring the outside in and soften windows and walls.
Susan’s studio at the back of the house is a room with a dark history. “It was once a holding cell when the building was a magistrate’s court. You can see the tiny window at the top and the black line that goes all the way around the room denotes where the original floor was.”
This unusual space was completely redundant until they got a digger in to hollow it out, digging down to the level of the garden and installing a new back door. Now it has a 15 foot high arching ceiling, and the small cell window – right up high – is festooned with greenery. This room remains uncluttered and Susan has painted directly onto the brick – dark grey beneath the line where the old floor was and darker grey on the curved ceiling. She has cleverly painted the cream coloured walls above the line, rubbing them back and making them look aged, as if the room has always been like this. It is a workroom, but has a distinctly Gothic theme – and I can’t help noticing all the iconography on the walls, dotted in and around the reels of thread and fabric.

Unbelievably, the floor here is another stencil, printed in a three-dimensional geometric design. “I had seen it in a French chateau we stayed in once and got inspiration,” she says. It is one thing to be inspired, quite another to be able to make a floor that looks as if it’s tiled using just a stencil and some paint.
Susan has not been afraid to do many things herself, including plumbing. “I plumbed in the kitchen myself. I had a plumber, then there were 2 leaks – the ceilings would have fallen in if it wasn’t done immediately, so I did it myself.”
Susan’s experience as a clothes designer, her understanding of fabric and the ways it can be used have enabled her to employ texture to great effect throughout the house. She often uses velvet, which adds depth and a touch of luxury to throws, curtains and drapes. Her unique style extends to the finishes on the walls – using brushes, a plastering trowel and a clever mix of paints, she has managed to make the new plaster look aged – giving it an antiqued patina that brings an esoteric, timeworn atmosphere. Seasoned Grandeur is the company she has formed to utilise her skills and her ‘passion for distressed, faded grandeur and vintage finishes.’ She will take on commissions for both domestic and commercial spaces, creating beautiful effects that work perfectly in period properties.

The new staircases look as if they have always been in existence, panelled and with wall sconces holding candles and candle-effect lights, adding mystery and history, transporting us back to another era. Dark panelling and dusky wall treatments work well here, because the ceilings are high and the windows are large. Upstairs, the bedrooms are uncluttered and serene, made to feel luxurious with velvet throws and textural, deep pile rugs.
An atmospheric artwork, painted by Susan, has been created within the panelling on the wall above the bed in what was her son’s room. In her daughters’ room – “she always dreamed of living in a New York loft apartment” – is a print of the New York skyline, encased in a window frame to give the impression of a loft-style city view.

The skilful mix of paint effects, tongue and groove, panelling, a mastery of texture and fabric, together with an understanding of how to create an authentic looking, aged interior, has enabled Susan to turn an empty, neglected shell into a period piece. Necessity is the mother of invention, so the saying goes – and in this case, it has proved to be the invention of a unique home brimming over with charm and seasoned grandeur. As Susan starts the search for a new project, we can’t wait to find out where her creativity takes her next.

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Seasoned Grandeur and to find out about Airbnb rentals, see Instagram
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