Molly Mahon's joyful, colourful Sussex cottage

Sometimes a dream house is not a dream house until you make it one, as the textile designer Molly Mahon found when she bought her Sussex cottage ten years ago. Just off a bumpy track that wends its way into the forest, the house has a charming higgledy-piggledy look about it, with a slightly wonky roof and windows that seem to peer owlishly out onto the garden. On paper it was everything Molly wanted when she and her husband Rollo began searching, having already left London for a rented house nearby, but fairytale cottages, for all their charm, have their drawbacks.

The very oldest part of the house dates from the 1600s and its original incarnation was as a woodman's lodge, but over the years it has gradually grown into a larger version of itself. In the 19th century another house was built onto the side, and for a time Molly's cottage served as the servants' quarters for that house, before eventually separating again. When the family found it, it had been neglected for some time, and Molly was disappointed when she saw it. "My heart just sank," she says. "The ceilings felt low, the kitchen didn’t even have a window, and I thought I didn't want to spend all my time in that cave of a room." Six months went by, and nothing came on the market in the area they wanted, so with a little persuasion from Rollo, "I agreed it was better than nothing."

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From this inauspicious start, however, the story could only get better. Molly, Rollo and their children lived there for a year until they knew what they wanted to do with it, and then the work began. "We went full speed ahead once we started," says Molly. Packing up all their belongings, they moved everything into two tents in the garden, set up a kitchen in the garage, and went to town. The main work was to the kitchen. What is now a spacious L-shaped space with room for a dining table was originally three separate rooms with ceilings low enough to be a serious inconvenience for the tall Mahons. They dug down to create a lower floor, knocked the walls through and replaced the windows, allowing light to flood into the room.

The other major improvement was to the staircase, which was then right at the back of the house. Moving it to the centre of the house allowed for a much easier flow between downstairs and upstairs. "I had been terrified to do it," recalls Molly, "but in the end it took two days and was remarkably simple." Once these works were complete, the house was transformed, with plenty more light and a considerably airier feel. "We'd taken the time to think about what we wanted, but I don’t think I ever thought it would be as good as it is," she says.

At the time when they moved in, she had just begun to launch her eponymous block-printing company, starting with stationery and with some wallpapers on the way. Having embarked on this career with a workshop at Tobias & the Angel while still living in London, Molly has grown it over the last ten years into a highly successful business, and the house is a showcase for the joyful, colourful papers and fabrics she has created over the years. The patterns come together to create a distinctive look, but as Molly explains, "it's not really about creating a look, it's about creating a feeling. I want my space to feel welcoming and warm and relaxed. I think you know when people really care about their houses; it becomes an expression of them, organic and flexible, and that makes it special."