The central core of the house, bounded by the two staircases, is painted in ‘Leather III’ by Paint & Paper Library. This includes the panelling under the main staircase and a curve of tulipwood tongue-and-groove around the walls of the spiral kitchen staircase. Beside each of the staircases is a charming lingering place, a comfortable chair and – as everywhere in the house – marvellous artwork and craft pieces.
Susie cannot help collecting. There is a grid of Jo Waterhouse collages, bought years ago, in one daughter’s bedroom; pieces by Aldermaston Pottery are displayed on the kitchen chimneypiece; and a pair of delightful framed Fifties table mats, found at Jenna Burlingham Gallery, hang on the kitchen staircase wall. The upper landing wall is covered in 28 framed cases of shells hung in a grid pattern. And on shelves above the blue-painted bath in the guest bathroom there are more shells. ‘They were collected by the children and the bath salts jar was my mother’s. I had to hang on to them,’ says Susie.
In the spare room next door, a small-repeat wallpaper pattern makes a background for floral curtains. Beyond, a corridor bedroom – which connects the spare room with the landing but can be enclosed by a door at either end – with bunk beds for visiting friends’ children, completes the ideal guest set-up. Susie has used small-repeat wallpapers in other bedrooms, too, and in the dressing-room corridor, picking up their colours in the curtains. However, in the family bathroom, a larger-scale wallpaper of birds and flowers gives a warm glow to the space, in which a 19th-century bamboo table stands beside the generous basin. An exception to the wallpaper theme is one of Susie’s son’s bedrooms, which is lined with Shaker panelling and wall pegs, a clever solution when he was a teenager and did not feel like picking up and folding clothes (what teenager ever does?) – and just as useful today when he is home for the weekend. ‘Don’t even look in there,’ Susie says with a laugh.
She has just finished working on a modern Soho flat with a sitting room she describes as ‘the size of a tennis court – I’m not kidding’. She is designing more members’ clubs, as well as houses in Greece, Holland, the US and Scotland – interiors we shall probably never see. However, what excites her most is her new collection of wallpaper and chic paper borders. ‘Younger members of my team ask, “What’s a border?”, but this is a new take on Eighties borders, reimagined in contemporary designs and colours with much more impact. Our horizontal stripe under the nosing of a painted staircase looks fantastic.’
And there cannot be many interior designers’ homes where the pencil markings of children’s heights can be seen on the kitchen door jamb. ‘It’s a home, not a showpiece,’ Susie declares. Heresy or not, it makes for happiness. This is a good place to live.
Susie Atkinson is a member of The List by House & Garden, our essential directory of design professionals. Find her profile here.
Susie Atkinson: susieatkinson.com