MOVING FORWARD
The creative makeover of a turn-of-the-century home in East Sussex proved to be a form of therapy for its artist owner
Artist Tracy Nors was living in a rented house in Kent when, four years ago, her husband Jesper tragically died. The couple had been looking to buy a house and she and Jesper had been waiting to make a decision on a school for their son Indigo, now 13. They had finally decided on a school near Rye, but when Jesper sadly passed away shortly afterwards, Tracy was left with the task of finding a home near Rye.
Tracy thought a renovation project might be a helpful distraction and when she saw the cottage that was to become her home, she knew it was the right one for her and Indigo. ‘It had some nice original features and was close to the centre of town,’ she says.
Everything went smoothly until the day of moving. ‘The removal man turned up and he could see the owner serving dinner in her kitchen,’ says Tracy. ‘She hadn’t packed up because of a problem down the chain.’ So Tracy and Indigo had to stay with a friend till completion, five days later.
Once in, Tracy wasted no time in getting to work. She had the bathroom refurbished, the kitchen updated and the house redecorated. Having lived in Denmark with Jesper for several years, Tracy was influenced by Scandi style, as is evident in the painted floorboards in the sitting room and the pale
favourite room ‘I absolutely love the bathroom because it’s such a beautifully sunny space, and being an enormous room it feels luxurious’
backdrop in the main spaces. ‘The kitchen cabinets were solid, so I simply repainted them, adding a new sink, worktop, tiles and flooring,’ she says.
For the joinery and renovation, Tracy used a joiner but did most of her own painting – including the spindles on the four flights of stairs. ‘Every spindle had to be rubbed down and given two coats of undercoat and two top coats,’ she says. ‘I did it all myself until the top floor, when I ran out of steam and got people in.’
The sitting room is painted in cool greys with splashes of colour, notably in the original fireplace tiles. And all around the walls are Tracy’s eclectic collection of artwork, including some of her own abstract paintings.
Tracy transformed the master bedroom by adding a large ornate bed and vivid blue accents. And in the bathroom, the old tub was replaced with a beautiful bateau bath and bold vinyl floor tiles. The sink console is a customised piece of furniture inherited from Tracy’s mother.
But achieving a much-loved stylish home had its perils. ‘We had a lot of bare floorboards with nails jutting out,’ says Tracy. ‘I kept having to pull them out to stop us cutting our feet on them.’ But she is proud of what she has done with the house. ‘It was like 11 months of therapy,’ says Tracy. ‘I’ve now grown to really love this place.’