COOL, CALM AND COLLECTED
Muted, milky shades set off simple rustic furnishings and unique vintage finds in this serene Georgian house in East Sussex
Muted, milky shades suit this serene Georgian house in East Sussex
When Minnie Craske moved to this Georgian home in Hurst Green, East Sussex, she set about the process of eradicating all traces of the colour orange. “I painted over or replaced bright pine boards with salvaged oak and ripped up lengths of sisal carpet,” she says. In place of these orange shades, she ushered in softer colours of clay, cream and stone and then added simple rustic furniture, gilt mirrors and scraped-back Swedish and French antiques. “The feeling now is far calmer and cohesive, cosier in some spaces and light and airy in others,” she adds.
This is a house that reveals itself in stages, with downstairs rooms peeling off the central double dining space, which was knocked through years before Minnie and her family arrived. Facing the street is an intimate sitting room, while a family room, once an adjoining barn, is a more contemporary beamed space with a pitched roof. This leads out into the secluded courtyard garden, as does the dining room. “The rooms are almost arranged in a circle, which means that in the summer we can open all the doors and enjoy a surprisingly modern indoor-outdoor feel,” Minnie explains.
Minnie lives here with her husband Pete and they have four children: James is 19; Harriet is 20 and at university, while Beth and Emily are both in their twenties and live away from home. The family also has two rescue dogs, Bella the beagle and Dee Dee, a Spanish Podenco, and are sometimes joined by temporary canine visitors, as Minnie fosters rescue dogs when they first arrive from abroad. “I’m always at the ready, but I never quite know what breed or size of dog will turn up on our doorstep,” she says.
The family moved here from a Victorian home in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, and the house immediately felt right for Minnie, who is known for bringing together milky
shades, interesting textures and elegant antique furniture. In fact, one reason she loved this home is because it came with a shop space, from where she now runs her business Decorative Antiques UK. “On quiet days, I can be getting on with things at my desk in the house, then, when the doorbell rings, I can just nip into the shop to meet my customer,” she smiles. A stable door divides the shop from their home and the interiors styles on both sides are pretty similar. “Some antiques dealers are more hard-headed and will buy things simply because they will sell well. But I’ve only ever been able to buy what I genuinely love, pieces that I’d happily have in my own home,” Minnie says.
However, moving from a townhouse to more cottage-sized rooms did mean that Minnie had to whittle down some of her belongings: “It was a really valuable exercise in refining my style and working out which elements and shades work best together.” As a result, the family’s neatly proportioned rooms are home to the cream of her antiques and vintage crop. “I’m never going to be a minimalist – that would be a step too far,” she says, smiling. “But it feels as if the decorative elements add something to each room without overwhelming the Georgian mood.” So, carved vintage wooden furniture mixes easily with gilt-framed mirrors, while antique coral sits beside chunky handmade ceramics. Then there are shells from local beaches or feathers picked from the ground on country walks.
After they moved here, Minnie deliberately kept an eye out for pieces of furniture with smaller and neater proportions, which is always popular with her customers, too. “Little rustic milking stools are a favourite,” she says. “Sometimes I’ll buy one for us and one for the shop.”
Whether wood, fabric or ceramic, most things in Minnie’s home are cast in naturally muted shades: “I’ve found that using light colours helps to unite my designs and also make the rooms feel larger,” she explains. She loves to combine different textures, too. “I like a bit of bling in the form of an antique mirror or crystal chandelier, but I also love weathered and worn pieces,” she says.
For Minnie, discovering an antique carved horse or a cabinet that has been scraped back so several layers of old paint still peep through is far more appealing than slathering layers of chalk paint onto a new item: “It feels as if you are getting a glimpse of the layers of time. That patina is what gives a piece true presence.”
In the family room, there’s a more contemporary feel, with a modern sofa beneath a South African chandelier made from strings of hand-rolled clay beads. “The front living room is where we sit by the fire in winter, but this is a lovely big space that we can all relax in during spring and summer and make the most of the warmth,” Minnie says.
At weekends, family mealtimes often spread out into the secluded courtyard, which is paved with bricks and is abundant with plants. “I don’t miss having a grass garden because we’ve got lovely countryside right on our doorstep,” Minnie says. “Before I open the shop in the morning, I’ll take the dogs out into the fields. Often we can walk for miles without seeing anyone.”
Her East Sussex location is also well placed for buying trips, whether she’s heading to vintage fairs at Ardingly or Kempton, or travelling over the channel to French and Belgian brocantes. “Adapting to this Georgian home has refined my style, but I’m still open to new finds,” Minnie says. “That thrill of spotting something really beautiful in a market – a piece that really ‘sings’ to me – is something I’ll never be able to resist.”
“Using light colours helps to unite my designs and also make the rooms feel larger”