Heart of Old

Reportage 13595344 | © living4media / Narratives / Toms, Julia | 45 images

All things timeworn pre-loved and sometimes just plain old are given a new life in this seaside townhouse. Darren, a former builder turned vintage shop owner lives in a two-storey West Sussex townhouse with his partner Maisy and their two Jack Russell dogs. The house which dates from 1905 is a five-minute walk from the beach. Their story began in 2009 when he bought the three-bedroom property from an elderly lady who had not touched the décor for decades. 'We got cracking straight away' he says. 'We were pretty much living rough in the house at first and everything took longer because we could only do it in stages. We both had full-time jobs and every time we got enough money in the pot we spent weekends and evenings working on this place. Apart from professionals doing some electrical plastering and carpentry projects they did most of the renovations themselves. They wanted to restore the house's traditional features like cornices so stripped off layers and layers of old paint by hand a painstakingly lengthy process that Darren describes as a real labour of love.