recycled home
excerpt from Recycled Home

by mark & sally baily
Recycled Home is simply a work of art. It’s one of those
books that I enjoy just looking through for its beautiful,
organic and inspiring photographs. This is a book to
leave out on the coffee table for family and friends to
explore and be motivated to think differently about all
the things we have in our life. How we really can reuse
and recycle everything from fabrics to flooring for a
their second time around. debi

Rescue, repair, reuse and rethink are the guiding
principles of our version of recycling (though we
do collect up our newspapers, bottles, and jam
jars too). We continually track down abandoned,
unwanted objects, from old wooden fruit crates
to forgotten farm buildings, and give them a new
lease on life.
We recently moved our home and business to
a series of interconnecting farm buildings in the
Herefordshire countryside. When we first came
across Whitecross Farm, it was pretty dilapidated
– but it was easy to see the potential in the structure, and we
knew something great could grow from it.
Twenty years of rescuing and recycling, and the recent
renovation project at Whitecross Farm, have given us the op-
portunity to establish exactly what our decorating philosophy
is: work with what you’ve got, be true to the structure of your
house and the materials it is made from. We think our attitude
to home improvement could be summed up by the term
‘undecoration’ – a word that perfectly describes what we do!
You don’t necessarily have to add to improve – sometimes
it’s better to take away.
Discover the honesty and history of your house by peeling
back its layers of wall paper and paint. This will give you the
chance to see what you house has been through before you
came along, and in this way the house itself gives the deco-
rating direction rather than you imposing your will and end-
less paint charts upon it. Instead you embark upon a voyage
of discovery together, and by taking this course you learn to
appreciate the creativity there is to be found in imperfection
– there’s always a surprise in store when you undecorate.
It is a much more fulfilling and honest process to work with;
you are being true to the basic materials and textures of your
home. Utter perfection and sleekly smooth painted walls can
rapidly become boring, there is no definition and your eyes
skim over the surface all too quickly. Contrasting textures are
an important factor in the recycled home and should not be
Recycled Home by Mark and Sally Bailey.
Ryland Peters & Small, $29.95; www.rylandpeters.com
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