Take a video tour of Gavin Houghton’s tiny ‘playhouse’ of a cottage in Oxfordshire

“There’s a certain freedom to renting,” says the interior designer Gavin Houghton of his cottage in Oxfordshire. “You don’t take it too seriously or invest your emotions in it.” Cotswold cottages have been part of his life since he left art school, and he has always rented one, alongside his house in south London and another in Tangier. “I had a cottage in Gloucestershire before this,” he explains, “and when the friend who used to rent this one gave it up about 15 years ago, I moved in. We have lots of friends in the area, which makes it fun, and the countryside is beautiful of course.”

The Oxfordshire village where the cottage is situated is slightly off the beaten track, some miles away from the usual tourist hubs of the Cotswolds. It is a place where Gavin and his partner Boz, an interiors photographer, come for peace and quiet, where their two Jack Russells (Jack and Jill) can have the run of the surrounding countryside. and where they can entertain, albeit on a fairly small scale. Left intact since it was built in the 19th century as part of a terrace of workers’ cottages for the big house across the road, its lack of modernisation is part of the appeal. It still has the original doors, metal windows and stone floors, and the layout is a snug two-up, two-down arrangement with a miniature garden behind.

Informality is a keynote of the interiors, in the true tradition of a country cottage. “If I owned it I’d be more precious about it,” says Gavin. “But as it was I’ve been quite playful, and I think of the house really as a playhouse.” The most striking instance of this approach comes in the sitting room, nicknamed ‘Kermit’s room’ for obvious reasons. “I picked it off a paint chart a thousand years ago, having only seen an inch square of it, and the room was painted when I wasn’t even there. I came back and thought “oh my God”. I always say no one would pick that colour if they were only shown a swatch of it, but it really works!” The overall aesthetic owes much to the Bloomsbury artists, with hand-painted circles in the manner of Charleston bobbing along the tops of the walls, and a painted screen by Gavin providing a focal point in one corner.

It is the comfortable setting for drinks when Gavin and Boz entertain, which they do with some regularity. “We put the fire on in the winter and have everyone sitting in here.” Parties of six to eight are somehow accommodated, but the small space can be part of the charm. “I love entertaining in a small space; you can cook in the kitchen and still be chatting to everyone sitting down in the sitting room. And when you’re squashed in, the formality disappears and people become much chattier.”

The rooms are filled with finds from antique markets and local shops. Gavin professes to like nothing better than a good rummage, with unframed oil paintings a particular favourite to snap up. “I have a bit of a picture-collecting habit,” he explains, though more and more, the pictures that occupy his walls are his own creations. Hailing from an artistic family, drawing, painting and making are the natural outflows of his main work in interior design. He also began to make ceramics a few years ago with the aid of a kiln in his London garden; now plates decorated in his loose, expressive, Duncan Grant-ish style lend visual interest wherever they appear.

While Gavin’s houses in London and Tangier may be more perfected expressions of his work as an interior designer, it’s easy to see the appeal of a private playhouse, where creativity comes with no particular stakes. “I don’t have to be too grown-up here,” he concludes, and there’s something very attractive about that.