LIVING above the SHOP

Antiques dealer Diane Sherman and her husband, Ian, have turned a former shop and cottage into a lovely family home

Twenty years ago, antiques dealer Diane Sherman dreamed of opening a tearoom. ‘Actually, I was desperate to do it,’ she recalls, thinking back to the holiday in Kent with her husband, Ian, when she first spotted a cottage (with a shop attached) for sale. ‘We hadn’t thought of looking in this part of the country, and although we loved the views over the Rother Valley, the village of Rolvenden was a bit out of the way, so we dithered,’ she explains. ‘What we didn’t realise then is how convenient this hamlet is to Tenterden and the gardens at Sissinghurst and Great Dixter.’

The shop itself offered an ideal space for a tearoom and the cottage had five bedrooms – perfect, as their children, Charlotte and Louis, were then still living at home. Then there was the charm factor of a 17th-century Kentish clapboard cottage, with an undulating peg-tile roof and leaded windows. The shop, built at an angle to the cottage, was added 200 years later. ‘It had been the village store and hub but was empty when we saw it, though someone was using the space to build a kit car,’ Diane remembers.

Having purchased the property, Diane brought the stock down from her

WORKING KITCHEN

The sink unit and cabinets in the galley kitchen were custom-made by a local carpenter, working with Ian. Diane and Ian found white tiles to clad the splashback from Topps Tiles. Whisks hang from a length of copper piping on butchers’ hooks

CHOCOLATE BOX The typical Kentish style is one of a number in the village

COSY UP Balancing deep and light tones in the sitting room begins with the floor, where the reclaimed boards meet white painted ones in the dining area

BREAKFAST TIME Diane’s knowledge of antiques helped her to source the attractive 1930s oak table and chairs, which fit perfectly in the breakfast room

TAKE A SEAT Diane found the old worktable at Ardingly Antiques Fair and the road sign is from Rising Star boutique in Tenterden. The door at the back of the dining room joins the old shop and the main cottage