A small open plan orangery off the living room is used to showcase art


previously solid wall. “There wasn’t a view from the kitchen before,” she explains. Now a dining area by the new windows looks out onto St Ives harbour, and the alteration is seamless from both outside and in.


Sheila has used the low-tech kitchen she inherited to inspire the layout and design to reect a slower pace o lie in the itchen, where antique pieces mingle with industrial accessories from the 1950s. It’s a reminder of the age of the house, which was the home of a geologist for 35 years before the couple bought the property. The kitchen is functional and beautiful, with white stained wooden walls and a hint of s industrial chic that reects the era o some of the original retained features, includ- ing the cooker. A woodburner has replaced a cavernous hole left by the boiler, and in front sit two welcoming sheepskin-draped chairs. The work surface is largely unmarred by the modern gadgets of 21st


century life. This is intentional,


says Sheila, whose décor aesthetic is more akin to that of the 1920s.


80 www.sbhonline.co.uk


he interiors reect heilas taste or natural


and organic colours and textures. Nothing has been wasted; furniture and accessories have been kept or repurposed. During the work, the couple uncovered original valuable features, including impressive tiled fireplaces Her approach is to reuse or repurpose furniture and features where possible. “Each house that we have renovated, we put in the same furniture or recycled it,” says Sheila. Even turf that was removed from the garden was reused on the roof of her new design studio, created in 2017. Its shape mirrors part of the house – a hexago- nal tower that juts out from the main building: “I wanted to make the studio contemporary by incorporating a grass roof to the design.” Sheila has added a library in the tower,


replacing what was a dark, uninspiring sitting room. The bare and dilapidated curved walls are now covered in well-stocked bookshelves that still follow the curved walls. She created the room for her scientist husband Gunter – even adding display cases holding assorted curiosities. But this


mar/apr 2022


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