{"id":30265,"date":"2024-02-08T12:01:18","date_gmt":"2024-02-08T11:01:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/606ecaf6-55d9-46cb-bf9c-7da33cf47cae"},"modified":"2024-02-08T14:38:15","modified_gmt":"2024-02-08T13:38:15","slug":"an-upcycled-edwardian-home","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/homesantiques\/rss_feed\/an-upcycled-edwardian-home\/","title":{"rendered":"An upcycled Edwardian home"},"content":{"rendered":"

Creating a showcase for an eclectic collection of art in his new Cambridge home inspired designer John Sutcliffe to use upcycled materials in an ingenious manner. Photographs Huntley Hedworth. <\/p>

By Janet Gleeson\n <\/p>

Published: Thursday, 08 February 2024 at 11:01 AM<\/p>

\n\n

An upcycled Edwardian home<\/h1>

A chance meeting in the pub led designer John Sutcliffe and his musician wife, Gabrielle, to the Edwardian home<\/a> in which they now live. <\/p>

\u2018We wanted to downsize from our former four-storey property, and we knew the person who lived here, so we agreed that he would move to the bungalow of his dreams and we would buy his house.\u2019<\/p>

One of the key attractions for the Sutcliffes was that very little had been done to the house since the Sixties. \u2018It was typical of its date: it had a front room with a bay window, a dining room behind, and then a back area with a kitchen, larder, scullery and downstairs cloakroom<\/a>. <\/p>

Upstairs, there was a big front bedroom, two smaller bedrooms and a bathroom,\u2019 explains John, adding that the layout was familiar because, by a strange quirk of fate, when they first moved to Cambridge three decades earlier, they lived in the house on the other side of the party wall.<\/p>

It took two years of renovations to transform the new house into the home we see today. Making the most of the available space downstairs was a top priority. <\/p>

\u2018We did what I rather disapprove of,\u2019 says John. \u2018We ripped the place apart.\u2019 Lifestyles have changed, he explains: \u2018We don\u2019t live with a maid who will come and knock on the parlour door and say, \u201cSupper\u2019s ready, Sir\u201d.\u2019 <\/p>

And so they removed the corridor that ran the length of the house, along the party wall, opening up the rooms across the width of the house. Taking out the huge chimney breast that originally housed the range in the kitchen<\/a> also made a huge difference, and the bricks this produced were used in the garden.<\/p>

When the major restructuring was done, the couple turned their attention to smaller details. John thought the internal doors with high lock rails were aesthetically unappealing. <\/p>

Turning them upside down seemed an obvious solution, but that in turn led to another visual anomaly because the bottom rail (now at the top) looked too wide and unwieldy. \u2018So we cut a channel in it to lighten and make sense of it.\u2019<\/p>

Keen upcyclers<\/a>, the couple found uses for all the timber and bricks that they removed. \u2018It is a recycled house, and we also bought lots of bits in local auctions and from reclamation yards.\u2019 <\/p>

The door leading to the garden is typical of their inventive use of old materials. \u2018It\u2019s a door from a reclamation yard near Cambridge. We cut out the top panels and inserted the coloured glass panel which we also bought locally.\u2019 <\/p>

Old furniture was also cleverly reused. In the downstairs cloakroom, the \u2018thunderbox\u2019 lavatory was made from an old Victorian dining table. <\/p>

A Regency eagle crested mirror in the kitchen is a confection made by John, \u2018with an eagle that had dropped off something I found in a local auction\u2019, an old frame from John\u2019s childhood home, and a convex shop fitting mirror glass, \u2018one of those ones to stop shop lifting\u2019, he says. <\/p>

You might also like <\/strong>a colourful Edwardian home inspired by Florence<\/a><\/p>

If no suitable old materials are available, John happily employs new. A bookcase in the stone hall was designed to hold magazines and is made from mdf painted black, decorated with mouldings cut from the sheets of print-room ornaments he created for the National Trust in the 1970s and then varnished. <\/p>

When they started to think about the decoration of their Edwardian house, inspiration came from Sir John Soane\u2019s Museum<\/a>. \u2018I wasn\u2019t trying to rip it all off, but we have lots of pictures and objects and we like to see them. One of the good things about moving is that when you rehang pictures and rearrange your possessions they are new again,\u2019 says John.<\/p>

Having worked as a colour designer with Farrow & Ball in its early years, John has a keen eye for the nuances of tone, so it\u2019s no surprise that the backdrop for his newly displayed collections are carefully chosen. \u2018All the paints we\u2019ve used are samples that I mixed up and took to B&Q to make in large quantities.\u2019 <\/p>

The kitchen, stone hall, stairs and passage are all painted in a pale stone colour with darker skirtings, while both the outside and inside of the windows in the music room, front and back door are a shade of bronze green that John based on a colour he remembered seeing in the Soane Museum. <\/p>

Meanwhile, the stairs leading up to the bedroom are painted in a trompe l\u2019oeil effect to resemble a red and blue carpet. Elsewhere in the house, colours were chosen with the art that would be displayed on them very much in mind.<\/p>

\u2018Black and white prints look good on yellow, so that\u2019s what we have in the music room, whereas a red background is better for coloured paintings,\u2019 explains John. In the main bedroom, the walls are hung with a crimson damask-print wallpaper<\/a> that Gabrielle found heavily discounted online. \u2018It\u2019s not Colefax and Fowler at \u00a3120 per roll \u2013 it\u2019s B&Q at a fraction of that, but it shows off the pictures just as well.\u2019<\/p>

One of John\u2019s favourite paintings, which hangs in the couple\u2019s bedroom, is a striking flower picture. \u2018It looks as though it\u2019s an 18th-century Chinese painting,\u2019 he says.<\/p>

\u2018But, actually, it\u2019s a copy I made after one in a house where we were staying in Italy. My mother-in-law was convinced that I\u2019d substituted my version for the original, but I didn\u2019t. This is mine!\u2019<\/p>

In the music room a collection of black and white prints and a screen made by John Sutcliffe are displayed against yellow walls. The red patterned curtains and sofa covered in a George Spencer fabric add to the rich effect. – Huntley Hedworth –<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div><\/div>
\"Edwardian
An old Royal Academy poster for a Poussin exhibition creates the striking backdrop for a giltwood mirror, flanked with decorative wall sconces. The lower section of wall is painted to imitate stone blocks in a deep purplish-red tone mixed by John. – Huntley Hedworth –<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div><\/div>
\"Edwardian
In the library, John divided the room with a bookcase partition to provide wall space for displaying pictures on the reverse. The flat arch is inspired by Sir John Soane\u2019s designs. – Huntley Hedworth –<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div><\/div>
\"Edwardian
Deep red bookcases are filled with John\u2019s reference books. Matching walls show off a selection of artworks. – Huntley Hedworth –<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div><\/div>
\"Edwardian
The AGA came from the couple\u2019s previous home. – Huntley Hedworth –<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div><\/div>
\"Edwardian
Removing the passage wall and a large chimney allowed John and Gabrielle to maximise space in the kitchen. John designed the table for a National Trust house in East Anglia. A curtain divides this space from the stone hall and doors leading to a scullery and cloakroom. – Huntley Hedworth –<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div><\/div>
\"Edwardian
The landing at the top of the stairs heavily references Sir John Soane in its arrangement of pictures, two of which conceal a door. The floor is painted as if it were carpeted. – Huntley Hedworth –<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div><\/div>
\"Edwardian
Painted in a shade of blue-grey, the bathroom contrasts with the warm shades that predominate elsewhere. The print depicts a snake by Renos Loizou. – Huntley Hedworth –<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div><\/div>
\"Edwardian
A cosy spare bedroom at the back of the house is just big enough for a bed and bedside table. – Huntley Hedworth –<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div><\/div>
\"Edwardian
The main bedroom is furnished with a Victorian half-tester bed, hung with Colefax and Fowler drapery. The wallpaper was chosen to display paintings to maximum effect and the Adam style fireplace was made by John. Obelisks on the mantelpiece are Italian and came from a relative. – Huntley Hedworth –<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div><\/div>
\"Edwardian
In the main bedroom the walls are hung with a crimson damask-print wallpaper that Gabrielle found discounted online. – Huntley Hedworth –<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div><\/div><\/div>