A rambling 15th-century house in Sussex with playful interiors by Phoebe Hollond

This house in Sussex had been bought by a couple with two young children. When they bought the house it was an unmodernised warren of dark rooms spread over two mostly disconnected wings. The older part, which has low, beamed ceilings, dates from the 15th century, with a larger addition from the 18th century. ‘The owners wanted to create a family home that felt full of life,’ says Phoebe. ‘She is quite bohemian and used to be an art dealer, and he works in finance and wanted everything to be clean and streamlined. So a big part of the project was balancing their tastes.’

The first task was to reconfigure the space. Phoebe worked with a structural engineer to take out internal walls to form two central rooms that help to anchor the house: a long, open-plan sitting room and library, and a spacious kitchen with a dining area, which connects the oldest part of the house with the 18th-century addition. The existing wooden floorboards, which were narrow and unimpressive, were replaced with bespoke oak extra-wide boards to bring a sense of scale, and the original oak beams were stripped and refinished.

The kitchen walls and cabinets - painted in Farrow & Ball's ‘James White’ - set off the chequerboard terrazzo floor from Balineum. Chairs from Ton partner an Alfred Newall table, with a Summerill & Bishop tablecloth.

Mark Roper

The furnishings draw on classic English country house themes, while bringing some Italian and French influences to the mix. There is a delicate surrealism in the details that lifts the scheme from the mundane: among judiciously chosen antiques are idiosyncratic bespoke pieces designed by Phoebe, such as a light with rainbow-coloured silk shades over the dining table, and a pair of distinctive spiral-armed chairs with an Alice in Wonderland feel in the sitting room.

Phoebe also convinced her clients to invest in interesting independent makers and craftspeople. In the kitchen, the splashback is tiled in a swathe of Douglas Watson’s handpainted riff on traditional Delftware, while the dining area features two Atelier Vime rattan columns that flank a painting by Catherine Pring. The ‘Dutch dining room’ – so called because of its wall-to-wall tiles (Phoebe used handpainted designs sourced from Balineum) – has sculptural plaster wall lights handmade by Hannah Woodhouse.

Initially, the owner vetoed the colour green, but Phoebe managed to smuggle it in through textiles and artworks. ‘An English country house without any green is a crime. You need to bring the outside in, otherwise the transition between the two feels jarring,’ she explains.

From the hallway, you now enter the central living space through book-lined walls painted a delicate chartreuse – a diluted version of Little Greene’s ‘Scallion’. In this library area, on a Nepalese tiger-design rug, four French Empire chairs partner a circular antique table, which the family uses for playing board games. The back of each chair is decorated with the star sign of the family member who sits in it, while overhead hangs a Fortuny silk pendant from Venice. ‘I like the heaviness and impact of an overscale ceiling light,’ says Phoebe. ‘I thought that it created an interesting contrast, because the furniture is actually quite dainty.’

In the library area, a Fortuny light is suspended above an antique table and French Empire chairs re-covered in Vanderhurd's ‘Ondine’, with the family's star signs sketched on their backs.

Mark Roper

Subtly separating this space from the sitting area is a powder-blue tambour cabinet, which hides a TV. The layout is tailored to allow the space to morph from somewhere for relaxing as a family to a place for enjoying drinks with friends: ‘The owners took some convincing that it was a good idea to leave room to walk behind the sofas, but if we had pushed these against the wall, we would have lost that intimate space for conversation.’ Walls in Farrow & Ball’s ‘James White’ are countered by colourful textiles and accessories, and Phoebe commissioned a decorative artist to paint the interior of the fireplace with a striking design reminiscent of flame stitch.

Upstairs, each room has its own elements of magic. The children’s bathroom has been painted with a mural depicting the owners’ two boys, inspired by the work of The New Yorker cartoonist Saul Steinberg. The main bedroom, a calm blue sanctuary, has a wallpaper border running round the door frames and windows. Like so many details in this house, this is decorating that is full of serious references yet does not take itself too seriously. The result is a contemporary country interior brimming with wit, vitality and charm.

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