Country comfort
OLD AND NEW ARE CLEVERLY COMBINED TO CREATE A COSY, ECLECTIC INTERIOR IN SCARLETT AND CHARLES ASHBYS PERIOD COTTAGE.
The thunderbolt didnt strike for Scarlett and Charles Ashby when they first viewed their cottage. They had lived in London for nearly a decade and, with a baby on the way, wanted to trade metropolitan life for rural Oxfordshire. We had driven down the M40 so many times to view properties that we had given up on the thunderbolt, says Scarlett.
What did strike them about this particular house, though, was the sense of calm as they crossed the threshold. They stepped into a spacious, stone - flagged hall with an inglenook fireplace and staircase curving invitingly in one corner. It was grand, but on a cosy scale. The then owner told them the house had originally been a convent, this room perhaps used for morning prayer, and had later belonged to a blacksmith. Scarlett and Charles love getting a sense of a houses history and their interest was sparked.
Once they had seen the spacious farmhouse kitchen with its soaring ceiling, their hopes were mounting, and by the time theyd viewed the bedrooms tucked under the eaves Scarletts nesting instinct all but took over. We were sold, she says. Wed found a house that ticked all our boxes, had character and the potential to make our own. Two months later they moved in.
While the previous owner had made major improvements and done much of the carpentry, there was a lot of dark wood and Scarlett felt that a pale colour scheme would make more of the light crannies. She picked fabrics and furniture to complement the houses character, mixing old with new; bargain with best. Weekends were spent trawling salvage yards and recycling centres for furniture, which Scarlett stripped and repainted. Its not all salvage, however. I worked for lighting company Vaughan and designer Caroline Riddell of Caroline Riddell Interiors to whom I owe all my experience and inspiration, says Scarlett, and her skill has been in blending higher end items with salvage finds and family heirlooms.
Charles, likewise, was desperate to roll up his sleeves. Armed with DIY books, he built cupboards in the living room and bedrooms and turned the storage room into an office with built - in desk and shelving. After he and Scarlett found a roll - top bath in a reclamation yard, a sink on Ebay and limestone tiles in a skip, Charles bought himself a plumbing kit and manual. He taught himself how to fit a bathroom, plumbing in a shower and putting up tongue - and - groove panelling. I keep expecting the pipes to start gushing water or the bath to fall through the ceiling, he says, but after two years its still holding fast!
With time passing and Scarletts due date drawing closer, the couples last task was landscaping the garden. They laid flagstones for a terrace, built a garden shed, created a vegetable plot and planted up the borders. Today the garden is mature and full, suited perfectly to family life.
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