Fashion stylist Louise Roe's Georgian farmhouse
I hadn’t even got out of the car and I knew the house was the one,’ says Louise Roe of the Georgian farmhouse that she relocated to from Los Angeles earlier this year, with her husband and young daughter. ‘I was crying as we drove up to it as I actually felt that it was our house. My husband was laughing and telling me to stop because tears would probably make it quite hard to negotiate.’ The house was just the second that the couple saw in the flesh on a six week trip back to the UK last summer and after a few months of gentle renovation and redecoration, is now home and has been since the start of the lockdown.
Both Louise and her husband Mackenzie grew up in the English countryside, but have spent the last few years living in the sprawling city of Los Angeles. ‘I think in LA you get used to having a lot of space around you, so we didn’t want to move to London and a smaller house, much as we both love it. We missed walks, wellies, country pubs and wanted that lifestyle here, plus we’re not too far from the city so we get the best of both worlds.’ But there is another element that caused Louise to crave the life she now has – the decoration. Having grown up in English country houses, it’s a look that doesn’t work in LA; ‘it’s cosy, comfortable and lends itself well to real living, whereas LA is predominantly so modern it doesn't lend itself to messy, real life with kids.’
As for the house itself, the Georgian property – Louise’s favourite type of architecture – is ‘very symmetrical and pleasing to the eye from the outside.’ It has a farmhouse feel to it and importantly for the stage that the couple are at with a two-year-old daughter, it’s child-friendly. One of Louise’s favourite things about the house and the architectural style is that it isn’t open plan and there are ‘different rooms for different things’. When they took on the house, Louise and her husband did very little structural work to it, other than raising an archway in the kitchen to prevent Mackenzie from constantly hitting his head. It was more a question of updating the electricity and the pipes and restoring some of the original features that had been lost over the years.
MAY WE SUGGEST: Fashion stylist Louise Roe's farmhouse kitchen
For Louise, it was important to have a heritage builder work on the house, ‘as they know what tiny bits to save during the process, rather than chucking it all out.’ In a stroke of luck, she one day saw a builder entering a beautiful, massive Georgian house nearby, ran after him and booked him in for their own house. Questionable method, perhaps, but with a winning result. The building work and decoration took around five months to complete, with all the carpets removed, floorboards polished and reclaimed boards put in where original ones no longer existed. A wall in the snug that had an indent in it was moved to become a straight wall. During the whole process, Louise and her husband rented nearby and were able to pop in most days to have a set of eyes on what was going on. ‘If you’re there,’ Louise explains, ‘you have a voice and you don’t have to undo any work later on.’
The decoration was the part that excited Louise the most. An avid reader of interiors magazines, she had amassed varied references for styles that she wanted to emulate and had an idea of what she wanted to do as soon as they bought the house – ‘I love decorating and was so excited for the move that I couldn’t stop thinking about it.’ Louise did the decoration herself, though she did seek some advice from Jane Churchill - ‘I love her, she’s a legend’ – and was lucky to have Edward Bulmer himself come to the house and give her guidance on the historical colours that may have been present in the property during its heyday. ‘His knowledge is unbelievable and he even helped us source a ceiling rose which an elderly neighbour who used to live here told us had once existed in the house. It came from Thomas & Wilson, and they told us they hadn’t had a request for that pattern for a very long time as it’s an original Georgian feature.’
The ceiling rose is in the drawing room, the most formal room in the house and Louise’s favourite to spend time in. She put her bureau desk in there – sourced from an antiques shop in Petworth and ‘probably my favourite thing in the house’ – as ‘often rooms without a television in them don’t get used, so I wanted to have a reason to spend my time in here’. The walls are painted in ‘Brick’ by Edward Bulmer, a colour choice that she had decided on when living in LA. She was so sure of it that she reupholstered two cane chairs that she bought at a flea market for $250 in a Lisa Fine textile to complement the walls and planned a blue velvet sofa from the Sofa Workshop opposite that ties it all together.
MAY WE SUGGEST: A Georgian cottage with expertly layered interiors by Ben Pentreath
Colour was a starting point in the kitchen too and Little Greene’s ‘Sage’ was the choice. ‘I felt I had seen too much blue in kitchens and I wouldn’t love it forever, but this green is timeless. I had to remember that it’s not sunny here like it is in LA so I chose a warm green.' The colour heightens the farmhouse feel of the space, which Louise was keen to emphasise. She worked with British Standard to create a homely, functional and utterly lovely space. She was 'really keen to have all the appliances hidden so it could feel traditional and old-fashioned’ so the team at British Standard created integrated storage behind cupboard doors. The kitchen opens onto a playroom for their daughter, half painted in a sunny yellow colour called ‘Trumpington’ by Edward Bulmer and half white panelling. Across the hallway is the formal dining room in Farrow & Ball’s ‘Oval Blue’, another key colour consideration for Louise: ‘I love red dining rooms but I’ve seen a lot of them and wanted something different’.
Louise also looked to British Standard for her dressing room, where they built two fitted wardrobes painted in a mulberry gloss tone, picking up on the Ceraudo ottoman in the centre of the room. An antique dresser and dark floorboards complete the elegant space. It leads off the master bedroom, also painted green, this time Farrow & Ball’s ‘Lichen Green,’ which Louise also describes as ‘the perfect green - clearly I just love green.’ Upstairs, the bedrooms are all in different styles; one that particularly stands out is the ‘Mary Poppins’ room, as Louise refers to it. It’s in the eaves, with low, sloping ceilings and beams. Inspired by a shoot she saw years ago, Louise covered the entire room in a red and white Pierre Frey fabric, also using it to upholster twin bed headboards. Another Pierre Frey fabric is used on the blind to the small window, under which she has placed a radiator saved from downstairs. ‘It feels like a fairytale’ says Louise of the space.
Louise and her family moved into the house in March, right as lockdown hit the UK. ‘It’s been such a strange year that the readjustment doesn’t feel that big,’ she says. ‘It’s been a godsend to have moved back when this has all happened and to have been somewhere really grounding for my daughter.’ The family has certainly taken to their new lifestyle with aplomb, growing vegetables in their garden and taking tips from their green-fingered elderly neighbour. During all the stress of moving, renovating and living through a pandemic, it’s the small things that have helped the family settle in; ‘It’s just really lovely to see my daughter pick something from the garden and help wash and cook it. We’ve spent most of our time running around on the lawn and my husband has become obsessed with the garden.’ They may be a world away from L.A., but Louise and her family are home again.
1/18The drawing room is the grandest room in the house, painted in Edward Bulmer's 'Brick'.
2/18Louise bought these two cane chairs for $250 from a flea market in LA. They were upholstered in leather while the couple lived in the States, but once they'd bought the house in England, Louise set about reupholstering them to work with her planned scheme.
3/18A blue velvet sofa from Sofa Workshop sits opposite the chairs.
4/18Louise's favourite piece of furniture in the house is her bureau desk. She sourced it from an antiques shop in Petworth and asked the owner to keep it for her for six months as she had nowhere for it, having already filled space in her parents' house with her finds. She chose to have it in the drawing room so that she would spend time in that room.
5/18Louise worked with British Standard to design the perfect farmhouse-style kitchen for her Georgian renovation. The floors are reclaimed Georgian floorboards. The colour is 'Sage Green' by Little Greene.
6/18The couple wanted to keep the sink where it was when they first saw the house - looking out the window and over the countryside beyond.
7/18The Aga came with the house. One of the few design ideas Louise imported over from her time in America is the pot-filler above the cooker, a handy device that you don't see often in the UK.
8/18Louise designed the island herself using the same floorboards as are underfoot. Two bobbin stools slot perfectly underneath and serve as a place to unwind at the end of the day. The room at the end is her daughter's playroom.
9/18The playroom being situated here allows Louise and her husband to keep an eye on their daughter as they cook. The space is charming, with white panelling on the lower half of the wall and 'Trumpington' by Edward Bulmer above.
10/18A small bathroom is filled with bright wallpaper and photographic prints.
11/18The central hallway has a traditional feel.
12/18Known as the 'Mary Poppins' room, this eaves bedroom is one of the first that Louise set to work decorating. Inspired by a magazine shoot that she had torn out and kept, all the walls and the headboards are covered in a Pierre Frey fabric.
13/18The room is designed for any children who stay over and may become her daughter's bedroom when she's old enough. The radiator was repurposed from a room on the ground floor.
14/18Another eaves room is more muted.
15/18The perfect window seat for reading.
16/18The master bedroom is painted in 'Lichen' by Farrow & Ball.
17/18It opens into a dressing room, for which Louise once again looked to British Standard for the fittings. Her wardrobes are painted in a gloss tone to reflect the light and a Ceraudo ottoman takes centre stage.
18/18The guest bathroom features a roll top bath and marine colour scheme.
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