‘original tiles were my inspo’
Tessa let the Arts & Crafts tiles in her bedroom hearth inform the scheme
IDEA TO STEAL ‘Rather than clutter up the room with blocky storage or a chest of drawers, go for open ladder storage on which to display special pieces’
Before moving here, my partner Robbie and i lived in a Fifties house in middlesex,’ says Tessa. ‘After mya our daughter was born, we decided to move out to Surrey where our money would go further and we’d get a decent garden, so we’d been keeping an eye out for the right place.
We were thrilled to find this little gem of a house tucked away in a quiet street. It’s an area of Surrey that Robbie knows well, as he was brought up nearby and his sister lives just up the road. The house had so much history and so many original features from the Arts & Crafts era still intact – lovely old fireplaces, gorgeous original hearth tiles and panelled wood everywhere. The flip side was that, as it had barely been touched, it needed lots of work, but we were up for that.
Planning ahead
As this house hadn’t been updated for 20 years, its condition would’ve put some people off, but we were excited that it hadn’t been modernised and ruined. Robbie is fairly handy at DIY, and I love interiors, so we drew up a three-year plan as soon as we moved in.
The downstairs was more of a longterm project, so we decided to focus first on our bedroom, so we’d have a retreat while decorating the rest of the house and Mya’s room. We started by sanding and polishing the lovely wooden floor over a couple of weekends and painting the built-in wardrobes off-white.
Nailing the style
After painting the wardrobes, we then chose a soft grey shade for three of the walls, to go with the original, apricotcoloured fireplace tiles. One wall was left bare for a statement wallpaper, which we found online for just £12 a roll. It seemed too good to be true, and it
did take three weeks to arrive from China, but it’s great!
As we already had wooden floors, I didn’t want to have a wood bed, too, so I found an upholstered one in a dark grey linen-look fabric to add some texture.
Blowing the budget
We splashed out on wooden shutters for the windows, which accounted for a substantial chunk of the overall budget. They cost us over £1,000, but we absolutely love them. They’re a great solution for half-height windows like ours, where a short curtain or multiple blinds wouldn’t have looked right. And they're useful in terms of extra security, too, so the money was well spent.
Pulling the look together
I love to take photos and I also collect vintage cameras, so the finishing touch for the room was making sure there was plenty of space to display my finds, which also tie in with the age of the house.
The project took three weeks to complete, and I’m proud to say we did all the work ourselves. We love it in here now and I’m so pleased that we managed to preserve the original features.’
‘keep AS many Of THE ORIGINAL FEATURES AS you can AS They give character TO A home’