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Melanie and Charles Cartwright\u2019s house is a family home in the truest sense, filled with inherited furniture and art from two previous generations.<\/p>
\u2018We were able to take on the contents of Charles\u2019s parents\u2019 dining room as the timing coincided with our move and having more space,\u2019 says Melanie. \u2018It\u2019s almost all Irish Victorian mahogany furniture originally from Charles\u2019s grandparents on both sides. The chairs are particularly special because his great- grandfather upholstered them \u2013 we\u2019ve been very pleased to keep everything in the family.\u2019<\/p>
The couple were also given some large portraits, bought from Irish country house sales in the 1950s, as well as Worcester porcelain<\/a> from Melanie\u2019s grandfather, and lots of classic books.<\/p> \u2018There\u2019s something quite lovely about picking up a jug or a book and thinking one of our relatives once handled and used this piece, just like I do,\u2019 says Melanie. \u2018I love having things around us that I know have been loved, and really cared for and enjoyed by generations before.\u2019<\/p> One of Melanie\u2019s most treasured possessions is a Feraghan rug<\/a> from Persia, which sits beneath the writing desk in the sitting room. Rugs like this were popular from the 1870s onwards and there was a revival of interest in them in the early 20th century, around the time the couple\u2019s house was built.<\/p> \u2018My grandparents gave me this rug and it sparked a special passion for them,\u2019 says Melanie, adding that she was then inspired to buy a few more at auction. \u2018I love the natural wool dyes and the horticultural motifs, and even the worn ones have aged very gracefully.\u2019 The rugs were also a good way to make the rooms in their new home feel furnished, she says, as when the couple first moved in, they didn\u2019t have the furniture to fill them.<\/p> You might also like<\/strong> an opulent Edwardian home filled with antiques and original features<\/a><\/p> Melanie and Charles moved from a former chapel conversion to their substantial Edwardian country home in 2012 when their children, Alex, now 25, and Jessica, now 27, were teenagers. Built for a retired naval officer in 1905, the house had been untouched for years and the couple fell in love with all the original features.<\/p> \u2018It was as though the house had been asleep and was waiting to be brought back to life,\u2019 recalls Melanie. \u2018The fireplaces were tiled in gorgeous jewelled colours, and the stone and wood floors had a worn, lived-in feel. The joinery and detailing isn\u2019t as fussy as the Victorian era and is closer in style to classic Georgian design, but without the price tag.\u2019<\/p> Large rooms with high ceilings and plenty of light appealed to Melanie and Charles but with few changes since the 1940s some careful mondernisation was required. After opening up the kitchen and putting French doors across the back, the couple reworked the former maids\u2019 rooms on the top floor into a bedroom, den and a bathroom for their children. When the builders had gone, they took their time to decorate and furnish while they got used to the size and scale of the rooms.<\/p> Melanie is a regular visitor to auction houses<\/a> near her home, such as Lawrences at Crewkerne, Duke\u2019s in Dorchester and Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood in Exeter. She describes her antiques knowledge as \u2018self-taught\u2019, initiated from her student days when she studied art history.<\/p> Unsurprisingly, one of the first antiques for the house that caught her eye was another Feraghan rug<\/a>. \u2018We\u2019d inherited a decorative Baroque painting that we\u2019d hung in the entrance hallway and, when I saw this rug, I knew the pale blue, raspberry- pink and greens would pick out the colours beautifully.\u2019<\/p> Melanie, who is now a garden designer, put together a scheme inspired by her love of gardens and the property\u2019s rural setting. She took the blues, pinks and greens from the hallway a little further, using the palette to create a gentle background rhythm of colour throughout the house.<\/p> \u2018Often our skies have a greeny-blue hue to them and so I put this colour with shades of natural greens and soft browns, and added warmth with raspberry and dusky reds,\u2019 she explains. \u2018I do this with my garden designs as it draws out the green.\u2019<\/p>