A hands-on restoration of an Edwardian home in London

After a laborious, hands-on restoration of their Edwardian London home, Sheila and Giles Udy turned to interior designer Susanna Thomas to rekindle its decorative charms. Feature Serena Fokschaner. Photographs Rachael Smith

Published: Monday, 04 March 2024 at 14:29 PM

The early months of marriage are, traditionally, wrapped in an atmosphere of carefree rose-scented romance. Giles and Sheila Udy took a different approach. ‘One of the first things I did after we got married was to enrol on a soft furnishings course,’ recalls Sheila, who was then working in insurance. Giles, a historian, was dispatched ‘not unwillingly’, he says, to learn woodworking.

The pragmatism has paid off. To say that the pair have done work on their Edwardian house, in a tree-shaded corner of south-west London, would be an understatement. Over the past two decades they’ve pooled their practical skills – cabinetry, floor-planning and curtain making – to transform the property, which had been turned into a series of bedsits in the 1970s.

‘We gutted the house – Giles worked on it hands-on full-time, bringing in a plasterer and others to help with the work,’ says Sheila, who has recently retired from a second career as a florist. But resourcefulness can only take you so far. When the last dust sheet was whisked away and the final floor plank banged into place, something was not quite right. The house lacked esprit. The paint colours didn’t sing, heirloom furniture lurked in dark corners. A creative eye was needed: ‘Someone to bring it to life,’ says Sheila.

Enter Susanna Thomas: an interior designer with a literary bent, who specialises in schemes that ‘reflect their owners’. Susanna is a longstanding friend, and knows the house well. She has sat at the kitchen table, ‘the Aga whirring with pots and pans’, listening to renovation stories: such as the time they uncovered the Edwardian axe originally used to remove the lath under the horsehair plaster. Or the way that the new railings outside the front of the house are based on the originals, removed during the Second World War when iron was scarce.

‘The house had all the ingredients, but they hadn’t quite cooked them properly,’ says Susanna. She was given carte blanche, says Sheila, ‘to do what she liked. We bought new wallpapers, lampshades and furniture but Susanna also made what we already had look beautiful.’

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The search for new furnishings began in Sheila’s fabric room, the shelves crammed with sale steals amassed over the years. ‘I spent hours among the rolls and remnants that Sheila had bought in secret triumph – checks, stripes, brocades… The florals sprigged with flowers, large blooms, trailing vines. I’d never seen so many different fabrics in one room,’ says Susanna. Gradually, the fabrics found a new sense of purpose. ‘I encouraged Sheila to use her beloved pieces and she’d happily sew into the night, presenting her creations to me the next day. Her make-do-and-mend approach was a tonic.’

Sheila remembers Susanna flinging a vibrant rug across a table to use as a tablecloth. ‘I said, “You can’t do that!” But it looks wonderful there.’ In the bedroom, a set of soft pink cushions from Sheila’s grandmother and an antique kantha set against brass Indian lamps remind her of her childhood home in Calcutta, where she spent the early years of a peripatetic childhood. ‘One of my earliest memories there is of eating homemade ice cream: it gave me a taste for cooking and a fussy palette.’

Now that Sheila and Giles’s four children have grown up, the way the house is used has also changed. The book-lined second sitting room was once a dining room. It was Susanna who persuaded them to track down the sociable round table. Sheila made the hemp tablecloth adding the twinkling bullion fringe. ‘There was just enough to cover the front, which, luckily, is what you see from the street.’

Heirlooms – ‘not valuable, but part of our story’, says Sheila – were also restored, such as a small bureau desk where her grandmother used to hide the chocolates, and the wingback armchair where Giles’s scholarly grandfather read his mother stories, translating the Ancient Greek into English.

Colour has played a key role in the transformation. The yellows, reds and greens draw on Sheila’s love of flowers and her own garden, a mass of David Austin roses in summer. ‘We spent many happy hours honing the palette,’ says Susanna. It was Susanna who persuaded Sheila and Giles to paint the kitchen a rose-petal pink. The design is Giles’s: he made the cherry wood carcasses, while a joiner added the doors. Sheila’s grandmother’s dinner service – retrieved from a box – is now displayed behind glazed doors.

‘She chose it to match a sample of curtain fabric. We don’t use it, but it’s wonderful to look at,’ she says. Susanna unearthed the basalt-style pottery, now arranged on top of the kitchen cabinets, in the cellar. ‘I sent a photo of it to my son. He said that’s “Very on trend”,’ says Sheila. Which proves that sometimes all you need is another – more expert – eye to make the best of what you already have.

Find out more about Susanna Thomas by visiting susannathomas.co.uk

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A hands-on restoration of an Edwardian home in London

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