CHIC & CHEERFUL
Time-worn leather chairs, vintage furnishings and French heirlooms bring an air of relaxed elegance to a refurbished listed farmhouse in the South Downs
Vintage furnishings and French heirlooms give this farmhouse an air of elegance
Breathing new life into a Sussex farmhouse was a challenge that overturned Aline Mackenzie-reid’s whole perspective. Before she and her family moved into this Grade Ii-listed house just outside Lewes, Aline was an interior designer specialising in high-end hotels and residential properties across the UK and overseas. This building could not have been more different: a country house fusing a hotchpotch of architectural styles ranging from 17th century through to Georgian and Victorian. “And that’s what excited me the most,” Aline says. “The opportunity to create a completely different style and feel.”
Looking at the house today, you can easily see why it won her over. At the front, a modern cottage garden frames the mellow façade of red bricks and blue-toned mathematical tiles – a feature typical of the local vernacular. To the rear, the dramatic backdrop of bare chalk hills, dotted with sheep and cattle, calls to mind the watercolours of Eric Ravilious. “My husband Duncan and I loved the position of the house,” Aline says, recalling their first viewing in late 2013. “It was on a no-through road, opposite the church, with views of the Downs and a popular 14th-century pub just down the road.” The period details, such as an inglenook fireplace, vaulted cellar and time-worn terracotta floors, sealed the deal.
AN AMBITIOUS PROJECT
The house had not been renovated since the 1950s and they knew they were taking on ‘a project’. For the first six months, from January to June 2014, Aline managed the entire refurbishment – including rewiring, new plumbing and refurbishing all the windows – while the family lived in rented accommodation. Thanks to her professional nous, Aline was able to devise clever and sensitive solutions for improving the internal layout. For example, a windowless storeroom was transformed into a study through the addition of skylights and a glazed door. A further storage space was converted into a utility room, while a new boot room was also added to the ground floor.
There were a few surprises, however. “The biggest job emerged when we discovered that all the wallpapered internal walls had 1950s boarding underneath, so we had to remove all this and re-plaster the entire house,” Aline says. “And, because it’s Grade II listed, we had to use lime plaster and breathable paint.” With the help of a local craftsman, the walls were traditionally re-surfaced throughout, resulting in a smooth and natural-looking finish. Happily, by removing the boarding, Aline uncovered a hidden hearth in the second sitting room, which is now a fireplace. After
they moved in, Aline spent another six months on the redecoration. Adopting a less-is-more approach, she left some parts of the home as they were, allowing their age and patina to add to the overall scheme. Other areas were restored or enhanced by being offset with contemporary colours and vintage accessories. The kitchen was a case in point. Here, Aline removed a 1970s brick-built hearth from the inglenook fireplace to bring it back to its original state, and then installed a simple woodburning stove, with a pair of armchairs positioned either side. Accents of grey paint and midcentury Eames chairs lend a modern edge to the otherwise classic space, where the custom-made cabinetry is topped by granite and teamed with a butler’s sink. This room, in the oldest part of the house, also features a listed cellar door with its original lock, which they haven’t touched.
Elsewhere, the wooden floorboards have been treated with clear varnish for a natural look, and a neutral palette of mostly Earthborn paints and Romo fabrics provides a simple backdrop for Aline’s collection of auction finds and French heirlooms. “I would describe my style as modern rustic with a hint of French influence – I grew up in Paris,” she says. “I like to keep interiors simple. I pick pieces for their shape and texture. As long as they’ve got charm and quirk, then they grab my attention.”
Overall, it’s a nuanced decorative treatment, drawing together aspects of French, midcentury and industrial design, while allowing the distinctive rural character to shine through. “Living here has changed the way I see everything,” Aline says. “Now,
I like to focus on bringing out the beauty of what is already
there, while embracing imperfection, because that is the whole charm of the modern rustic look.”
EMBRACING THE COMMUNITY
Upstairs, Aline has converted one of the bedrooms into a studio for her online vintage shop, The Textured Room, which sells the intriguing items she has sourced both in the UK and France. And, after enjoying working on her own home so much, she has focused her interior design practice almost exclusively on commissions in the surrounding area. “I’ve changed my career and adapted it to where I live,” she says. “I enjoy working with local craftspeople and really embracing everything that is around us.”
Aline is delighted by the tight-knit community they now belong to, and how easy it is to shop locally for fresh produce or even antiques for her home and work. At weekends, she and Duncan enjoy meeting up with other families and taking their son Milo for walks on the South Downs just behind the house. “The view from the top is amazing – you’ve got an outlook right over Lewes and in the other direction you can see the sea,” she says.
It’s clearly a wonderful place to raise a young family, with no light or noise pollution, and the countryside on your doorstep. Their garden, which Aline also designed, is visited by a wide variety of birds, including the occasional pheasant. “It’s a lovely childhood for our son,” she confirms. “Growing up in Paris, I never knew what country living was! But I’m thoroughly enjoying it now.”