25 Beautiful Homes March 2020

Can’t you just see spring beginning to unfurl enticingly around you? Already, the mornings are brighter, sunsets are later and the darling buds of May feel almost within reach. Light has such a powerful effect on how we feel – and when we decorate to make the most of the sunshine (however much we have), it can create a truly wonderful impact, refreshing our surroundings and enhancing our mood. We’re celebrating this throughout the March issue, offering inspiration and ideas for flooding your home with light. Lisa Bailey’s pale porcelain floor tiles and soothingly swirled marble island beautifully reflect the rays pouring in from her glass sliding doors (page 14), while the full ceiling of windows in Morgan Scott-Murch’s dining space breathes new life into her collection of vintage and reclaimed…

First appearances can be deceptive, as Julie Smith and her husband Mark found out when they went to view a detached cottage in Derbyshire. ‘I’d always preferred Victorian and Edwardian houses with high ceilings, so from the outside this place didn’t appeal to me,’ says Julie. ‘But after stepping inside, we both immediately warmed to it.’ As well as the charm of its interior, the house held certain other appeals – it was an upsize and so allowed more space for the couple’s sons Oska, now 18, and Ned, 17, and it meant moving from the outskirts of Derby into the countryside. ‘We’d wanted to live somewhere more rural, but not much ever came on the market in a village we liked, especially with land,’ says Julie. ‘So when we saw…

Making the move out of London to the Surrey suburbs was all about family for Lisa and Richard Bailey. ‘Our twins, Talulah and Lilli, were only 10 months old when we swapped Ealing for the greenery of Weybridge,’ recalls Lisa. ‘We were drawn by the great schools and we wanted a property that would give us and the girls room to grow.’ It’s easy to see why the couple fell for this characterful Georgian house. Brimming with period charm, with four good-sized bedrooms, Chesterton House offered the potential to create the family home Lisa had been looking for. It also gave Lisa the chance to create a business opportunity, renting out the house as a photography and film location (@chestertonhouse). However, the rooms were small and the couple knew they wanted…

Unable to agree on the location of their next move, Alissa Glyn and her husband Craig decided to stay put and transform the ground floor of their Hertfordshire home into a chic and industrial-style family space. ‘Craig wanted to move and take on a big project and I was happy to stay,’ says Alissa. ‘But I won him over!’ Thankfully, there were no arguments about what they wanted to achieve. ‘We both still loved the barn-style architecture of the house, but wanted a completely different look inside, with an emphasis on natural materials and textures, rather than colour,’ says Alissa. The couple have lived in their home since 2009 with daughters, Gracie, now 10, and Myla, seven. Initially they focussed on family life, and then a few years ago Craig started to…

When Emma Allen and Mark Opie envisaged the transformation of their home, they felt there was only one way to go. ‘With its high ceilings and elegant proportions, the house demanded something bold and dramatic,’ says Emma. ‘We wanted to remain sympathetic to its roots, while creating something that combined classic and contemporary.’ From the outside, this is a typically handsome early-Edwardian villa; inside, it is anything but typical. Along with panelled doors, sash windows, plaster mouldings and period fireplaces are daring colours and patterns, intriguing textures, arresting artworks and the clean, sculptural lines of vintage and modern furniture. But it is also a comfortable and practical family home. Emma and Mark, who have run a gallery and picture framing business, Eat Art, in Falmouth for almost 20 years, were not…

A business foray to South Africa in 2007 opened Jim Brett’s eyes to the beauty of the country and, subsequently, he and his husband Ed Gray began to visit it often. ‘We fell in love with the place, specifically Cape Town and its environs,’ says Jim. So it was only natural that when the pair were looking for somewhere to build a second home, they chose Hout Bay, a mountainside village 30 minutes from the city. ‘This home was the first place we’ve started from scratch,’ explains Ed. ‘Usually we’ve carried around the things we love from place to place.’ FAVOURITE FEATURE ‘I love all the different shaped windows and how they present an intimate and special portrait of our surroundings’ Appreciating that a project of this nature ought to be sympathetic…