GRAN DESIGNS
EMMA WELLS MEETS A FAMILY WHOSE REFURB HAD TO MEET GRANDMOTHER’S REQUIREMENTS, TOO
WILLOW Tree House, in the Surrey village of Fetcham, is a true family affair. When interior designer and lifestyle blogger Matthew Shaw came across the detached Arts and Crafts house, he knew it was the perfect place to create a multigenerational home.
Not only did Matthew and his husband, Andrew, a business analyst, want to create a light, bright family home for themselves and their two daughters, Poppy, 11, and Grace, 9, but they wanted to make sure Andrew’s mother – recently diagnosed with dementia – could have her own comfortable, safe annexe where all her needs could be catered for.
‘The house had just the flexibility we were looking for, so three generations of our family could live together,’ Matthew says. ‘It hadn’t been updated for several decades, but it had so much scope to be extended, and had bags of potential.’
It was also the ideal space in which Matthew could showcase his newly acquired interior design qualifications, ‘although this did mean camping out in a dark, dirty garage for several months,’ he says.
Matthew, Andrew and Andrew’s mother sold up the three properties they owned between them, including a cottage on the Isle of Wight, to buy the four-bedroom house for around £950,000, in the summer of 2018.
The couple worked to a build and renovation budget of about £250,000, with the result a beautifully updated, extended and future-proofed 1920s home with a footprint almost double its original size. There are five bedrooms, a huge lantern roof atop the dining room and several pale, flowing living spaces, all perked up with a carefully curated scheme of contemporary furniture and lighting, high-street finds and treasures salvaged in reclamation yards.
Touches such as a secret cupboard with pink neon lights, a jet-black downstairs loo and a gold-leafed cabinet of curios ensure the home is uniquely their own.
When they bought the house – which the family now shares with their cat, Lady Fluffington, and their spaniel pup, Newt – it was in good structural condition, with the living room’s huge floor-to-ceiling windows a real USP. But inside, Matthew says, it