Authenticity is the key to this restored Art Deco house in Fife
Period style doesn’t quite go far enough to describe Damon Wilkinson and Todd Law’s Art Deco home. The couple have chosen to truly live with history, embracing every aspect of the era, and their furnishings and even their appliances are authentic to the a
For Damon Wilkinson and Todd Law, the experience of living in an Art Deco house, embracing every aspect of the period - right down to everyday appliances and household wares - is a lot more gratifying than grating, they say, despite the odd
21st-century lifestyle sacrifice here and there… ‘The main thing I like about living in this house is the fact that our level of consumerism is a fraction of anybody else’s, because there are no trends to follow. We don’t think, “we did this room 10 years ago, it’s time to update”. It’s a case of doing it once and later on down the line it gets a lick of paint in the same colour. And that’s it,’ explains Damon.
‘All the stuff we have – the iron and vacuum cleaner etc – is not going to need replacing. We’ve been using our cooker for 13 years. It’s 85 years old and is still going strong. It’ll probably see us out!’
Damon began collecting when he was 14, with a red telephone kiosk that arrived on a coal lorry from Oban to Damon’s family home near Fort William. ‘I spent hours chipping out all the old putty and reglazing it,’ says Damon. Bakelite telephones came next and when Damon was a student in Edinburgh in the 1990s, picking up Art Deco bits from car-boot sales became a favourite pastime. ‘When I got my first flat it was all furnished with secondhand stuff,’ he says.
In 2012, when Damon and Todd’s 1940s house in an Edinburgh suburb began to feel a bit cramped, the couple looked further afield for a suitable home.
Hidden from view behind a tree-lined wall, up a winding track, they found a brown pebble-dashed two-storey house in the village of Cupar in Fife. ‘It was built in 1936, and the location - near a train station - is great. It also has many of its original features, such as the untouched timber panelled staircase and landing. Many people assume that
Art Deco houses are white but brown pebble-dash is also very typical of the period,’ says Damon.
The couple moved in right away. ‘We didn’t have the luxury of being able to have things all fixed up before we moved in,’ says Damon. ‘By and large
I’ve done everything myself as I enjoy it.’
Some aspects were more enjoyable than others, he admits. ‘Upgrading the insulation under the floors was a bit of a horror job! There is only a foot between the joists and the ground in places. So I had to scramble on my back in all the dust. To get into some areas I had to turn my head so that my nose wasn’t sticking up! It was really that tight.’
The loft has also been insulated, the modern windows were damp-proofed, and the central heating pipes lagged. ‘I replaced all the flat-panel radiators with 1930s ones. The original central heating system was installed in the 1950s - I found the date on the tank in the loft. I love discovering the archaeologies of buildings,’ says Damon.
The kitchen and bathroom had been updated in the 1970s with lots of honey pine tongue-and-groove finishes, which Damon stripped back. ‘The basin, bath and woodwork in the bathroom are original,’ he says. ‘I saw from the marks on the wall that there had been a towel rail. So I reinstated that and added new tiles round the bath. I also put lino on the floor as that was probably there originally.’
Linoleum tiles, still produced in the Forbo Nairn factory in nearby Kirkcaldy, also feature in the kitchen. ‘I replaced the 1970s pine kitchen with freestanding cabinets and fitted a gas cooker I’ve had since 2001. It has an oven with a thermostat, which was very modern in 1931.’
The whole project to upgrade and restore Carlowan into a 1930s home has taken the best part of five years. The house is furnished with pieces picked up from auctions, car-boot sales, classified ads, and more recently Ebay and vintage websites.
‘We do have some technology such as digital radios, a modern TV and computers, but things like the lamps, iron, kettle and fridge are all from the 1930s,’ says Damon. ‘What I love about this era is that they were manufactured before they started thinking about built-in obsolescence, so everything was designed to last. So for anyone who thinks we’re a bit mad, our argument is that we’re not paying for a new fridge to be made every 10 years.’
Damon admits that there may be one or two downsides to being a period purist. ‘There’s the guilt when we break or damage things that are no longer produced. We don’t have highly valuable pieces, but it’s tricky to source items on demand,’ he says. ‘Also everything is far heavier than its modern equivalent, whether that’s the fridge, iron, Hoover, telephone or pieces of furniture. However, that’s because they’re more robustly built and is why they still work after 80 years. Unfortunately, the kettle and iron – both 1930s Hotpoint – don’t have thermostats, so just don’t forget about them!’
After five years of hard graft, is it now feet up time for Damon and Todd? ‘We reached saturation point some time ago!’ says Damon. ‘But if we see something nice we’ll get it, and push something off the other side. The old pieces go up for sale or to charity. We don’t scrap anything.’
‘A recent acquisition that pleased me greatly was getting back Carlowan’s original telephone number as shown in my 1940 telephone directory,’ says Damon. ‘And I’ve just bought a George V wall box that I have installed in the side of the shed – I intend to make it into a wee post office in due course. Oh, and we’ve got an Anderson shelter, waiting to be rebuilt. The list just keeps on getting longer!’