This cottage in Surrey belongs to a vintage interiors buyer
Follow the wiggly garden path to the front door of this Victorian cottage and you'll find the only clue to its previous incarnation: the small iron dog on the door knocker reveals that it was once a kennels belonging to the local lord of the manor.
Today, the manor has been converted into luxury apartments and there are no yapping hounds. The only sounds are the gentle birdsong and soft whinny of horses from the paddocks beyond the garden. It's hard to believe that London is just a few miles away.
It was the sleepy location — tucked into the Surrey Hills where the Wealden Greensand meets the North Downs — that won over Claire and Jamie McFadyen when they first saw this house five years ago. The building itself was in a sorry state of neglect, with damp walls and mice in residence. But the hard-won experience gained from restoring their previous period home meant the couple weren't daunted.
Over the next four years, they worked with a local architect and restored as much as possible, repairing the original windows and repointing the red brick chimney stacks. They sorted the cramped layout by removing several internal walls downstairs and, eventually, built a triple-height extension with Crittall-style windows at the back of the house.
The extension would accommodate a bright new kitchen and dining space. ‘I was under pressure from the architect to add another bedroom above the kitchen, but I had a vision of a high, vaulted ceiling with dramatic vintage lighting and a feature window through which I could watch the horses graze,' recalls Claire.
The lofty contemporary architecture provides a fitting backdrop for the industrial aesthetic in the kitchen, with its reclaimed factory lighting and old shop fittings repurposed as units. Vintage pieces are woven throughout to soften the contrast between old and new.
A salvaged wooden French counter has a new lease of life as a kitchen island. A sturdy butcher's block has been upcycled as a worktop next to a range cooker. And an old butler's sink sits beneath the factory lights, while a three-metre glass chandelier bounces sunbeams into the room.
A keen follower of wabi-sabi, a Japanese philosophy that celebrates imperfections, Claire has deliberately maintained a rustic feel throughout the house. The stairs have been stripped back to their original wooden risers and left with raw painted edges and exposed wood. Original floorboards in the entrance hall and sitting rooms have been restored, while elsewhere on the ground floor, large pale flagstones create a farmhouse feel.
Vintage furniture and antique gilt mirrors proudly display the patina of age. 'We love interiors with a sense of history and are always looking to find pieces that tell a story,' says Claire.
She and Jamie run an interiors emporium – A Hundred Stories – a few miles up the road. Many of their pieces, sourced from France or on visits to Ardingly Antiques Fair, move between their shop and home.
Each room of the house is a constantly evolving canvas as new finds arrive. 'When I fall in love with something on one of our sourcing trips, I think about the function it could serve,’ says Claire. 'I might give a set of pigeonholes a new lease of life as quirky kitchen storage, for example.'
Contrasts abound throughout the house – old and new, light and dark, soft and hard. Practical stone flooring and old-painted black floorboards are tempered by textures and textiles. 'I love to layer both my clothing and our home,' says Claire. 'I don't like bright colours, so to create interesting interiors, I use lots of muted shades and materials, building up tactile wools, cottons, linen and sheepskins.'
A view of the countryside outside her home also inspires Claire. The walls in the entrance hall are painted a pale green and plants are everywhere – hanging from the ceiling, sprouting from shelves and springing up from the stone floors. Her elder daughter, Maisy, is clearly drawn to the botanical aesthetic too, draping faux-greenery garlands from the pitched ceiling next to her bed.
Claire is now focusing her love of nature on her next project – designing their kitchen courtyard. 'I'm dreaming of a 300-year-old olive tree, seating made of salvaged beams, and a pizza oven where we can cook under the stars,' she says. It's all a far cry from the dilapidated former kennels of just five years ago.
Take a tour:
Kitchen
Living room
Bathroom
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