chic & unique
Vintage and upcycled pieces salvaged from home and abroad bring a relaxed feel to Séverine Rutherford’s Tyneside terrace
Gallic style and good taste were the two main ingredients of this one-off Tyneside home
Ateaching exchange programme in the northeast of England led to a whole new life for Séverine Rutherford. The science teacher, who comes from Compiègne in Picardy, swapped roles with a teacher at a County Durham school five years ago. However, three months before her year-long post was due to finish, she met her husband, Paul, on a dating website and decided to stay in the UK.
Three years ago, the couple bought a home together near the school that Séverine’s 14-year-old daughter, Claire-alix, attends in Newcastle. ‘I really wanted to find something that was typically English and I had my heart set on living in an old terraced house with a bay window,’ explains Séverine.
After viewing four or five properties, the couple came across a beautiful Edwardian terrace opposite a church. ‘It was very clean and had all its original fireplaces, but was very old-fashioned,’ says Séverine, who oversaw the room-by-room renovation while they lived amid the dust. ‘The first thing we did was rip up all the carpets, as we planned to sand the floors. Then we stripped about 10 layers
of wallpaper before having every wall replastered. It was quite tricky, as I didn’t know much building work terminology, plus it was sometimes challenging to understand the Geordie accent.’
The fact that the house had both a breakfast room and separate kitchen at the rear also appealed to Séverine, who has since launched her own French pâtisserie business, cremedelacremenewcastle.co.uk, offering special events and workshops from the family home. ‘I used to call the breakfast room “the room of no hope”, as I didn’t know what to do with it,’ laughs Séverine. ‘And the original kitchen was miles away from the dining room.’
Her solution was to install a U-shaped kitchen in the breakfast room and repurpose the former kitchen as a utility/laundry room. This additional space also comes in useful for her patisserie classes, as it has a second oven. ‘I knew I wanted a neat, clean-lined white kitchen with no handles,’ says Séverine. ‘And although I wanted old-fashioned ceramic tiles, they were too expensive, so I went with a vinyl floor. It was a great price and gives a very good effect.’
The main bedroom now has a partition wall incorporating built-in storage that forms a dressing area behind the head of
the bed. ‘I had my heart set on a walk-in wardrobe, but I didn’t want to cut up the bedroom too much or hide the fireplace,’ says Séverine. ‘So creating a little corridor behind the bed was the solution.’
There are several pieces of upcycled furniture dotted around the house, such as a coffee table made from reclaimed wood, quirky shelving that has been fashioned from her daughter’s old guitar, and an industrial cable drum given a new lease of life as a side table.
One of Séverine’s favourite places to browse for unusual pieces is Mccartney’s Yard in Hebburn, where she discovered the old cinema seats in the sitting room and the letters used to spell the word ‘cuisine’ on the wall in the kitchen. ‘The letters come from several shops and pubs,’ she says. ‘The letter C was actually an O from a Tesco Express sign that I cut in half.’
Many of the other vintage finds were brought over from Séverine’s native France. ‘You can buy pieces so cheaply at the
future plans‘ I’ d love to extend into the side return and add a conservatory, as well as install an internal window in the dining room to add light to the hall’
French brocantes,’ she says. ‘For instance, the map of France in the dining room was just five euros. I don’t go looking for a particular thing, but if I spot something I love, then I’ll buy it.’
Mixing new and old furniture, while sticking to a fairly neutral colour palette, is Séverine’s fail-safe recipe for successful decorating. ‘Although I have a classic taste in terms of decoration, with a lot of grey and white tones, I also like to add quirky objects that you wouldn’t expect to see in a home.’
Séverine is loving her new life, and has now set up a second business working as a private chemistry and physics tutor. ‘Geordies are very welcoming, just like the locals in northern France,’ she says. ‘Although it was quite difficult in the beginning, I’ve now made lots of English and French friends, and I feel very settled here. Also, it’s just five minutes’ from the house into the centre of town, so we definitely picked the right area for us.’