An elegant late-Victorian manor house decorated for Christmas
When Carole Annett consulted her friend, the interior designer Emma Sims Hilditch, asking her to give a bit of advice on how best to decorate the grand stair hall of her late-Victorian manor house in Surrey, she did not know the power of the genie she was letting out of the bottle. What ensued was six months of building work while Emma and her team refreshed and refurbished the entire house, for four months of which Carole and her husband had to move out entirely. It is just as well then that she absolutely loves the result: 'We decided to bite the bullet, with Emma's encouragement, and do the job properly.'
Carole is steeped in the world of interior design, having been retail editor of House & Garden for five years. However, she is also refreshingly honest about her limitations when it comes to designing her own home. 'The idea of having a blank canvas to decorate fills me with horror,' she says. 'I have no desire whatsoever to trawl through hardware stores trying to decide the right finish for a doorknob, for example. It was such a pleasure to work with someone who made all those choices so much easier.'
Not that she had not made a good start when Emma stepped in. She and her husband bought the lion's share of the house, deep in the Surrey Hills, in 2008. Over the next few years, they made it a comfortable and welcoming family home for themselves and their visiting children, but it felt rather piecemeal - a room here, a room there, an amalgamation of mainly inherited furniture. 'Carole had chosen some beautiful things,' says Emma, 'but this is a big house, so it requires cohesion and flow.' She also pushed Carole to be a little bit braver about scale and colour. 'This is a wonderful, architectural gem of a property and I wanted to play to its strengths,' says Emma.
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An imposing front door opens into a small entrance hall with a boot room and cloakroom. From here, double doors lead into the formal staircase hall, from which one door leads into the kitchen, dining area and family snug. At the other end, bi-folding doors open into the drawing room, which in turn connects to the kitchen, making it possible to walk in an arc from one end to the other. Stairs lead to four bedrooms on the first floor, each with their own bathroom. On the second floor is an archetypal teenage den.
With the help of GILB Construction, Emma began by making small but meaningful adjustments to the internal architecture, such as introducing more panelling in the hall in order to camouflage electric cabling for wall lights. 'Lighting was probably the biggest element we changed, because they hadn't tackled that side of things,' she says. 'We introduced layers of lighting in order to create mood and atmosphere. I also persuaded them to scale everything up in size, in order to harmonise with the proportions of the rooms. The oak-leaf chandelier from Richard Taylor Designs in the stair hall, for example, is probably twice as big as the one hanging there when I first saw the house.' Carole agrees, 'I would never have put such a huge chandelier in the middle of the room, or chosen the two enormous glass lanterns from Vaughan that hang over the island in the kitchen, but these are now among my favourite things in the house.'
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As well as being inspired by the architectural bones of the house, Emma took her lead from the varied collection of art that the couple had built up over the years, both separately and together. Hanging over the chimneypiece in the drawing room is a landscape by their friend, Robin Richmond, from which Emma took the heathery blues and greys to form the palette for the whole house. 'The decoration is mainly made up of neutrals, but we have introduced soft elements of colour - particularly through fabrics,' she says.
With an extended family to cater for, Christmas is a time when the house really comes into its own. Carole likes to keep festive decorations elegant and low-key, scavenging through the manor's garden for trails of greenery to adorn stairs, tables and chimneypieces.
This Christmas will mark the end of the refurbishment and the couple are now able to sit back and enjoy their home. 'For me, this house now feels really grown up. It is also liberating to know I can admire all the new fabric and furniture collections as part of my job, knowing I need never make a decorating decision again'.
Jake Curtis1/13The main entrance is framed by a nineteenth-century decorative stone facade.
Jake Curtis3/13A door leads from the entrance area into the stair hall, where a chandelier from Richard Taylor Designs hangs above a table from Pieter Porters Collections.
Jake Curtis4/13In the living room, an ottoman designed by Emma and covered in G P & J Baker's 'Islay' creates a focal point.
Jake Curtis5/13In the library, a blue sofa adds a punch of colour to the neutral scheme.
Jake Curtis8/13Dining chairs are upholstered in a blue and white floral fabric.
Jake Curtis9/13The stair runner sets the blue theme of the decoration.
Jake Curtis10/13The landing with festive foliage.
