ANNIE SLOAN
Chalk Paint legend Annie Sloan tells Sophie Hannam about her love of ne art and eclectic decorating style
My home is a Victorian townhouse and it’s decorated with a mixture of things that I love, from 18th-century European art to African design. My favourite room is forever changing. In the summer I enjoy my garden room, which has lots of bright natural light, but in the winter I love my cosy si!ing room. I like the assortment in my home, there’s thri"y, expensive and colourful – I feel like I’m successfully making a connection between traditional and modern. The rst piece of furniture I ever bought was a large chest that I painted with a scene in the Seventies, many years before painted furniture really took o#. I tried to sell it on a"erwards but a furniture dealer said: ‘Nice piece. Trouble is, I’ll have to get all the paint o# $rst!’ I’ve got lots of old things in my home including a Roman
spearhead on a stand that I like a lot.
My most recent purchase was a beautiful sofa without a bo!om to it. It’s a gorgeous li!le thing but the whole seat cushion was missing. I made a new one from my linens, which I then added details to with my paint. I wanted to mimic the beautiful %oral embroidered pa!ern on the back of the sofa.
At the top of my wishlist is a stunning chair covered in old ikat fabric. I haven’t even asked the price of it because I think it will probably be ridiculous. It’s so unique, with beautiful Uzbek fabric and a proper leather back.
My passion for paint comes from $ne art and paintings, which give me great inspiration for the way shade and texture can be used. My love for colour started very young as we had lots of di#erent prints and hues in our home. My father inspired me the most, and I can remember him talking a lot about colour, including why he loved di#erent shades. My favourite painted piece in my home
is a desk that I painted many years ago with my Chalk Paint in Old Violet, Emperor’s Silk and Old White. I love the desk itself because it was a cheap, 1930s piece that nobody wanted – I actually bought eight of them from St Anne’s College in Oxford. I sold the rest, but I kept this one because I just adore the colour combination.
I love collecting jugs. They’re so useful and can be used in a variety of ways. I also have a passion for plants and I have so many ferns in my house at the moment. I get to travel a lot with what I do, so I also adore buying ceramics and pieces from local artisans wherever I go.
On a free day I have to make the e#ort to go out and do something other than work. Yesterday was lovely: I looked a"er my li!le granddaughter and we went to the Natural History Museum at Tring. It’s basically a museum of stu#ed animals – you walk in and immediately see a polar bear.
A home should be a place that tells a story. Mine represents so many memories that I’ve created with my family. Annie Sloan has recently launched a new range of detail brushes. For details visit anniesloan.com