KENT APARTMENT
Mandi and Murdoch crawford’s style combines cosy colours and vintage finds to create a home full of personality
This cosy, colourful home really comes into its own at Christmas
ForMandi and Murdoch Crawford, home is a moveable feast. They already owned a cottage in France when they decided to move their English base from Derbyshire to Kent in 2011. As their children, Lauren and Alisdair, had both finished their education and were pursuing their own careers, it was the right time for the couple to find a new home within 30 minutes’ drive of the Channel ports, so they could easily pop back and forth to France throughout the year. The Crawfords wanted a period property, but one without a garden for easier maintenance.
The apartment they found is on the first and top floors of an 18th-century townhouse in a pretty market town. They loved the original floorboards and the scale of the living room with its generous sash windows, but most importantly, the apartment provided the combination of spaces they needed. ‘Having a kitchen large enough to eat in and a proper living room reflects the way we live,’ Mandi says. ‘There are two bedrooms on the top floor, but we also needed an office for Murdoch. He was able to take over a small room leading off the dining room. And as the dining room extends beyond the table area, it usefully doubles as a third bedroom if Lauren and Alisdair both decide to visit at the same time.’
As soon as they moved in, Mandi began redesigning the kitchen. ‘It was fitted with 1970s limed oak
floor-to-ceiling cabinets and the effect was overpowering,’ she says. So Mandi commissioned a joiner to make a series of open cubes for wall storage, and deep drawers below a new oak worktop. ‘I don’t like wall cupboards because you can’t see what’s inside them. This arrangement is functional and a lot of kitchenalia is attractive, so why not have it out on show?’ she says.
Mandi loves the proportions of the 18th-century rooms, which represent a change from all the country cottages she has lived in. ‘But I found decorating them quite a challenge,’ she says. ‘The living room in particular didn’t lend itself to my normal rustic style. It needed a bit more elegance and I promised myself it wouldn’t be full of pieces from French brocantes!’ The generous size of the room easily accommodates three sofas. ‘We use this room every day and I wanted plenty of seating so that we can all sit around the fire in winter and chat, even when there are lots of us.’ The status of the room is enhanced by an arrangement of framed botanical prints, part of a set given to Mandi by her stepfather, a world-leading expert on ferns, who worked at the British Museum. With its large windows, the living room benefits from a lot of natural light and Mandi has responded with furniture and decoration in pale tints to amplify the space.
In other rooms her decorating choices have again responded instinctively to the quality of the natural
light. ‘We live here mostly through the winter and so
I’m decorating for winter daylight and to make each room visually warm, welcoming and comfortable,’ she says.
‘Red, green and cream are the colours I love most and, of course, they all have a special link with Christmas.’
This rich colour scheme continues throughout the rest of the living spaces. ‘The dining room is always dark and you can’t argue with that, so I’ve painted it deep red to make sure it’s cosy,’ says Mandi. ‘Though we don’t have a pendant light above the dining table, I hang up a wire construction and decorate it according to the occasion, and of course that means with natural greenery at Christmas. For festive meals we always dine by candlelight for extra cosiness, too.’
When Lauren and Alisdair come home on Christmas Eve, the decorated tree is already positioned in a corner of the living room and stockings are waiting to be filled beside the fire. ‘We all buy small presents for each other so every stocking has a mix from each of us,’ Mandi explains.
‘We open them early on Christmas morning, then enjoy Champagne as we open presents from under the tree at around 11 o’clock. It is often at Christmas that we realise how lucky we are to have a period property like this, for us and our children to come back to. Though we lock up and leave it now and again, this apartment always serves up a warm welcome when we return to it, whatever the season.’