A LOVELY STORY’
Breathing new life into a tired but muchloved house was a joyful family affair for Lorraine, who has created a colourful coastal home with a mid-century feel
When my mum passed away four months before her hundredth birthday, I couldn’t bear to say goodbye to the house she loved,’ says Lorraine. ‘I grew up here. When I was four years old, my mum decided that she wanted to move from our mid-terrace to somewhere nicer with a garden.
My dad couldn’t be bothered looking for a new house, so my mum found a plot of land and went around to several banks until she eventually found one who would lend her the money for the plot and the build. She took in guests and did bed and breakfast in the summers to help pay the mortgage.
This house holds so many precious memories, so we decided to keep it. It’s in such a lovely location, just a 10-minute stroll from the beach, with country walks a stone’s throw away. My daughters love coming here for seaside getaways with their families.
In need of TLC
My mum had the kitchen replaced about 15 years ago but hadn’t decorated in decades, so it looked a bit worse for wear. The whole house needed rewiring and we had most of the rooms replastered after removing all of the anaglypta wallpaper. Because the house was built in the 1950s, there weren’t many features worth celebrating, but it still had the original floorboards in the hallway and living room, which we definitely wanted to keep.
We didn’t have a massive budget though, so we needed to find clever ways of adding character without spending a fortune. Fortunately, my
eldest daughter, Clare, is an interior designer (@nospacelikehome.uk) and she redesigned the whole house for us.
Space planning
The first thing that we tackled was the layout, which needed tweaking in order to make the most of the space. For instance, the house could sleep eight people, but there was only one bathroom, so Clare came up with the idea of splitting it in two, creating an en suite off the master bedroom and a separate family bathroom. The cleverly shaped wall between the two rooms acts as a shower screen, maximising the available space. We had a bit of a disaster when the plumber laid out the en-suite geometric floor tiles incorrectly. It made me feel dizzy just looking at them, so he had to rip them up and start again!
Downstairs, there was a small kitchendiner, but two living rooms, which was a bit of a waste. One of the living rooms was next to the kitchen, with a sliding door separating the two spaces, so we removed the sliding door to create a large, open-plan kitchen-diner with a separate sitting zone, then we took out the chimney breast to make space for a large dining table. This is where we spend the most time, so we needed it to be a really sociable area.
A breath of fresh air
I wanted the house to feel relaxed and uplifting, so Clare chose a calming coastal palette of blues, greens and pinks, which flows through all the rooms. We