When it comes to decorating, most of us default to the safety of white walls and polite furnishings. But you don’t need a diploma in decor to pull off a home ablaze with hothouse details and colourfully upcycled furniture. With a little guidance from the professionals, you can step away from the timidity of taupe and into the warm embrace of bright patterns, over-scaled furniture and easy mix and matchiness.
Which is exactly what happened to Emma Sumner when she and her husband Martin bought their family home on the north Norfolk coast. Perched on a gentle hill, the quintessentially East Anglian brick-and-flint house had a nostalgic appeal for the couple, who have two young children.
“We used to have a small cottage along the coast and had very many happy times there,” said Emma. “As our own family grew, and as our friends started having children, we decided to look for somewhere larger. Martin and I spent our school holidays not far from here when we were young, and the views across the dunes and shingle to the sea are very evocative. We can cycle to the beach from the house and in summer there’s kayaking and sailing – both of which remind us of our childhoods.”
The creeper-smothered arches of the Gothic facade also beguiled them. “The house was once part of an estate and had been lived in by the same family almost since it was built,” says Emma, who works in finance. “It had a happy, cared-for feel. I’d call it handsome rather than beautiful. It also had a lovely garden with a mix of formal and informal areas. We knew our children would have a lot of fun outside.
“Like most houses of the Edwardian era,” continues Emma, “it’s well built – and we liked the sensibly sized rooms with their solid walls.”
The time-warp decoration of blank walls and chintz-choked rooms needed a serious re-boot for the young family.
“We wanted to breathe new life into the house. We wanted to make it young, fun – and bright,” she says. “But as I usually just stick to white I realised we needed help.”
A work colleague had shown Emma photos of a project by interior designer Stephen Ryan. “I loved the colour and irreverence of his style. But at that point I thought designers were for other people.” A meeting with Ryan overturned her preconceptions. “The process was surprisingly straightforward. Stephen came to our house. He asked about the way we live and how we wanted the new home to work. I sent photos and our list of wants. He came up with ideas for furniture, layouts and fabrics.”
Instead of lavish knock-throughs, deft tweaks introduced more light into the dim interior, which detracted from the frosty feel. In the living room, a narrow opening was replaced with double doors to open up the space. New panes of glass in other doors helped link the interior to the garden, which has wide stone steps and trim topiary. There is more foliage in the garden room, where Sylvanian families and Lego citadels populate the emerald rug. A trompe-l’oeil wallpaper of lichen-clad brickwork masks plain walls.
“At first I couldn’t imagine how the design would look. But I trusted Stephen. Trust takes you a long way,” says Emma. For instance, upstairs in the spare bedroom, a fussy, stained-glass roundel is now clear so guests can gaze out – like voyagers snug in their cabin – on to church spires rising from the reclaimed marshland which stretches to the coast.
There is a nod to the maritime setting in the dining room where a lagoon-blue ceiling adds drama. The panelling is original and sits well with the large Victorian table the couple inherited. “Our previous home was much smaller so this is the first time we’ve been able to use it.”
A glossy blue also glows in the guest cloakroom where the china-patterned wallpaper is a backdrop for Emma’s collection of antique plates. The tiles are original, but instead of the “twee” dado, a sliver of mirror adds a sleek touch. The blowsy Venetian chandelier, which looked frumpy in the bedroom it used to hang in, has taken on a new persona. “Because this is a smaller room, it feels less serious,” she says. “It’s a bit tongue in cheek.”
Upstairs, patterned wallpaper brings warmth to a north-facing bedroom. Downstairs, some shrifty re-invention (every designer’s secret weapon) in the kitchen meant “the serviceable layout” was retained, but solid-wood cupboards were repainted in a “sort of Christian Dior bag grey” to counteract the rustic tiles.
If you are still doubtful that decorating can be a voyage of self-discovery, Emma makes a persuasive argument. “We’ve learned how to be creative with the things we have, but not in an expensive way. Part of the reason most of us tend to stick to neutrals is because we’re afraid of getting things wrong, but you can go wrong with a grey room, too. Working on this house has made me much braver about using colours and patterns. This is the real me.”
