Decorated by a cunning woman

Sarah – you’ll never blow your own trumpet – so permit me to express our admiration.

Forty-three years together allows me to say authoritatively that Sarah has a remarkable talent for creative improvisation. In her hands cheese wax is transformed into demons, socks into hobby-horses, miscellaneous left-overs into wonderful meals. Camouflaged radiators & power-points appear as marble or wood to disappear into the background. Scraps of fabric & paint become a startling replica of the ‘Beethoven Frieze’. Furniture destined for the tip is revitalised by decorative painting. Anything is possible. She has applied her flair, her magic, to this house, with paint, ceramics & fabrics, as I endeavour to illustrate here.

Last Christmas someone gave us one of those presentation boxes of fancy cheese. Whilst we tucked in Sarah started messing around with the red, black & white wax casings. Within a few minutes she’d modelled ‘Damien & Darryl’, photographed here using a segment of a Roger Dean illustration as a hellish Bosch backdrop.

Our predecessor, Mrs Ford, proudly told us she hadn’t “spent a penny on the place in 40 years” … and it showed. There were acres of red flock wallpaper, leaky, collapsing thatch, rubber wiring, lead pipes and no warmth, physical or metaphysical. My, it was a gloomy house then! The upside, of course, was that old features were still present, although often concealed.

So when we arrived Sarah turned her energies and considerable artistic skills to re-enervating the house. Heavily armed with hot-air gun, paint strippers, steamers, and aided by Bobski, the chain-smoking & ancient builder, she set about the daunting task.However, painting was a larger project & considerably more arduous. Soft paint effects have been created using marbling, rag rolling and sponging techniques and clay paints employed to create subtle, earthy finishes. Sarah has also added some individual murals in several rooms and imparted a theatrical character to the hall, stairwell, & sixty-foot upstairs landing. The hall and stairwell have been painted to appear as marble & sandstone ashlar blocks, which combined with the Eastern brass lamps, gives a Saracen castle feel. The upstairs landing, which is airy & light appears as an outside terrace, having pale blue sky with faint clouds and the hint of an ivy covered balustrade.

We have an Art Deco bathroom, housing the original lino & claw-and-ball bath, with images recreated from work of Klimt and the designer Erté , including the fabulous Lorelei. My favourite is Sarah’s ‘Treasure chest’, a made-over travellers’ chest bought for a fiver and decorated with decoupaged clippings from magazines & wrapping paper.

Sarah’s ceramics are iconic too. Without them our ‘Good Life’ era would have been impecunious and far less fun. Her Green Man fountain in the yard has always been much admired and appears as the logo on our brochure.