You simply go down a step and into the extension area which has been turned into a sunny breakfast/sitting room with French windows leading into the garden. With walls painted in buttermilk yellow, curtains in a colourful print from the Design Archives, a comfortable sofa, and a big jug of flowers always on the pine table, this is probably the most used room in the whole house.

The other major structural change was to break through the wall dividing the two first floor bedrooms to make one long drawing room, running the full depth of the house. Being on the first floor and having windows at both ends, it is full of light at all times of the day, and the owners touch with decoration has made it especially delightful.

She has always favoured small-scale antique furniture, a blessing in this room which as a result appears far more spacious than it really is,
Daintily proportioned small chest and occasional tables sit comfortably around a three piece suite upholstered in a pinky-beige velour, a plain beige carpet is overlaid with Chinese rigs in Patel colours, and the walls are papered in soft gold, a subtle damask pattern above the low white-painted dado rail and a fine self-stripe below it.
Decorative accessories are all small-scale – a hand-painted lamp base, silver-topped bottles, a little set of brass scales on one mantelpiece – and include numerous pieces of porcelain created by the owners late husband, who made them quite late in life as a hobby. He started by making cheerfully chunky pottery, then graduated into the most exquisitely tiny, Chinese-inspired, pieces of eggshell-fine porcelain. He was also a talented painter, and many examples of his work hang around the walls.