Home Is Where The Art Is

Reportage 13595355 | © living4media / Narratives / Sanderson, Robert | 25 images

When Rachel and Tim bought the woodman’s cottage five years ago they turned a new page in their life together. Tim had left the navy and Rachel left her job with a city law firm and started an art foundation course at West Dean. ‘We sold part of a large Gothic house which was elegant and baronial but for us it never felt like home. This cottage is so different. It is small and cosy with an artistic relaxed ambiance, which as an artist myself, I empathise with. Even so when we moved in, the interiors were very dated and there was lots to repair and upgrade.’The couple’s immediate projects were rewiring, plumbing and modernising the kitchen, which was divided into three tiny rooms. The old kitchen was so minuscule it was like a ship’s galley with only room for one person to stand by a stove. Rachel has always invested in freestanding kitchen furniture, so when the walls dividing the three rooms came down and a new stone floor was laid, her island unit, larder and dresser arrived from storage. ‘They were part of my old kitchen in our last house, ’ Rachel explains, ‘I just had to find a local carpenter to make a new sink unit.’