Style counsel
Interiors stylist Sarah Davenport has given her Victorian home a fresh lease of life, thanks to clever lateral thinking and her keen eye for vintage finds
Interiors stylist Sarah Davenport has breathed new life into the Victorian home she shares with her family, combining vintage and antique furniture with contemporary colour schemes and floral displays
As a freelance stylist for interiors magazines and a number of high-street brands, it’s no surprise that Sarah Davenport’s work should follow her home. The Victorian house she shares with her husband Ross Dennison and their two young daughters, April and Verity, is filled with an eclectic mix of vintage and antique furniture, all of which Sarah regularly arranges and rearranges to create attractive vignettes. These she enlivens with plants and flowers – a throwback to a previous career as a florist.
‘I’m constantly moving things around,’ she admits. ‘It’s such a simple way to refresh a space.’ In fact, it’s become something of a running joke with her husband, who frequently returns home to find that everything has changed.
But such spontaneity should come as no surprise to Ross: three years ago, when the couple first saw the house, they were living in a village nearby and had no plans to move. ‘ We knew that houses like this rarely come up for sale,’ says Sarah, explaining that she thought they might as well take a look. ‘But when we walked into the hall and I saw the original Victorian tiles, I knew this one was for us.’
The previous owner had lived to the ripe old age of 101 and nothing had been done to the property for 30 years or more. Although the decor felt tired, most of the original features were still intact. Even so,
the electrics and plumbing all needed to be updated and throughout the house sash windows restored. The family then gamely moved in before tackling the next phase of renovation: a two-storey extension, which has given them a spacious kitchen- cum- dining room, as well as two further bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs.
Sarah then embarked on the painstaking work of stripping back the fireplaces to reveal the Victorian tiles and the iron surrounds. She is particularly pleased with all the original mouldings and decorative details. ‘I am a huge fan of picture rails as they enable me to move art and mirrors around without making holes in the walls,’ she says. ‘Ross is fantastic at stringing all the pieces at the right height. He’s very good at DIY so I come up with the ideas and he helps make them happen.’
Having cut her teeth as a florist, running her own shop selling homewares and flowers, Sarah spent a number of years working as a product designer for various interiors brands.
‘I was involved in trend forecasting, so I used to visit all the design fairs to spot the next key looks,’ she explains. For her own home, however, she has opted for a more enduring aesthetic over fleeting fashions. ‘ We didn’t want the result to be about
cutting- edge design,’ she says. Instead, the couple wanted to embrace the building’s Victorian roots with a style that was both sympathetic to its past, while being a modern family home. ‘ We both love designs from di erent eras, but we felt it was especially important to include Victorian pieces throughout the house.’
In the sitting room, a 19thcentury armchair sits alongside a pair of linen- covered ‘Stocksund’ sofas from Ikea. Stripped back to its original upholsterer’s cloth, the chair has a deconstructed feel, which Sarah particularly loves. ‘It has a pared-back aesthetic that works with the other pieces in the room, which are quite Scandinavian in style,’ she explains. Upstairs in the family bathroom, an antique mahogany mirror and a row of vintage coat hooks look fresh against crisp white walls and modern metro tiles. ‘I love the way old pieces really come to life in a contemporary setting.’
Sarah is also a fan of reviving furniture with a lick of paint: a wooden bedstead that she had owned for years is now a striking
We love designs from different eras, but we felt it was important to include Victorian pieces throughout
emerald green, while a basic Ikea bench was given a chic makeover with a coat of dark grey paint and a cushion made from vintage French linen.
Sarah’s design for the kitchen centred around mixing fitted cupboards with antique and vintage free-standing pieces, such as a French kitchen unit, a Victorian military chest and a metal apothecary cabinet, all of which were found at local antiques fairs. ‘Ideally, I would have had only unfitted pieces but that wouldn’t have been practical,’ she explains. In the end, Sarah chose neutral white cupboards that allow the other pieces to become the focus of the room.
However, the organic feel of the layout belies some meticulous planning. ‘Everything was carefully thought through before we began,’ Sarah remembers. ‘ When the room was an empty shell, Ross helped me to lift the pieces into place to see how they looked – I’d originally intended to use the military chest as the island, for example, but I ended up swapping it with the French unit.’
By sticking to a colour palette of white, green and grey, and limiting materials to wood, marble and brass, Sarah has cleverly tied the disparate items together. A similar restraint is evident throughout the house, where flashes of green in the form of prints, upholstery and tiles complement the tasteful scheme.
Much of the green comes from her love for all things botanical, including a vintage German poster of waterlilies above the couple’s bed and the plants that can be found in every room of the house. At this time of year, Sarah’s earlier career in floristry really comes into its ABOVE The Victorian !replace, with its pale green tiles, inspired the colour scheme for the snug, which is painted in different shades of green including a near- black hue on the bespoke cabinetry, ‘Black Hills’ by Autentico. The 19th- century leather lounge chair is one of a pair. The canvas above the !replace is a reissue of a poster for Munich Zoo from Not on the High Street FACING PAGE A 1920s glass lamp hangs over the dining area. Sarah bought the Tolix chairs at Newark antiques fair. At Christmas, the table decorations have an informal though festive feel with plenty of "owers and foliage
own as she fills the house with festive flower arrangements and garlands. ‘My home wouldn’t feel finished if I didn’t have lots of plants and flowers,’ she explains.
Many of Sarah’s Christmas gifts are homemade: chutneys in Kilner jars, using apples from the garden, and lampshades crafted from floral fabrics. April and Verity, following in their mother’s footsteps, like to add their own touches in the form of personalised wrapping paper. It’s this appreciation for handmade and vintage that gives Sarah’s home its fresh yet timeless quality.
Much of the green comes from Sarah’s love for all things botanical, including a vintage German poster of waterlilies above the couple’s bed