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A mash-up of English countryside meets the 1920s meets Morocco,’ is how interior designer Francesca Rowan-Plowden, 46, describes the five-bedroom house near Rye, East Sussex, that she shares with her psychotherapist husband David, her four sons (aged between nine and 19), two dogs, two chickens and a cat.
Francesca’s walls are painted in Marrakech by fenwickandtilbrook.com, bringing a holiday atmosphere to the space all year round. The table and wall mirror were found at Ardingly Antiques Fair in West Sussex (iacf.co.uk/ardingly). For woven wall plates see hombe.co.uk.
Rowan-Plowden may be more familiar to you as Frankie, a finalist in this year’s hit BBC reality TV game The Traitors. She’s still recognised from the series. ‘A guy showed me pictures of his bathroom renovation on the tube the other day.’
Francesca in her kitchen. The cabbage and fish plates were collected over years from antique markets in the UK and France. Dress, houseofdisgrace.co.uk. Sandals, dunelm.com
A theatre actor before pivoting to a career in interior design, Rowan-Plowden appreciates the parallels between the two: ‘Theatre is about taking the audience on a journey and putting on a good show. It’s the same with interiors.’
Francesca inherited this wooden cabinet from her parents: ‘It was their old record cupboard,’ she says. ‘Now it houses crockery and linens. The artwork is from Ardingly Antiques Fair.’
Despite the ‘lived-in’, cottage-core vibe, the house was built at the turn of the millennium: every room was painted white; fixtures and fittings were modern. ‘It lacked soul,’ says Rowan-Plowden, who ‘aged’ each room, painting woodwork in heritage colours and adding vintage textiles. Silver lever door handles were replaced with aged brass ‘beehive’ versions.
Pet chickens roam freely in the garden. The sofa is from made.com. For a range of outdoor tables try grahamandgreen.co.uk.
Rowan-Plowden has an impressive design portfolio that includes Goodnestone Park stately home (which she converted into a wedding venue), Battel Hall on the Leeds Castle estate and Kingshill Farmhouse on the Elmley Nature Reserve, all in Kent. Unlike her prestigious clients, however, she had to keep budgets tight for her own home. All spare cash went towards fundamentals like plumbing and rewiring. The main bathroom, which featured a retro jacuzzi that leaked, is a case in point. ‘The pumps didn’t work, so it was essentially a tub with holes,’ she laughs. ‘It was like bathing in an egg timer – a race against the clock to get clean before the space flooded.’
The stairs are painted in Green Smoke (farrow-ball.com) to give the entrance hall a heritage vibe. The curtains are antique crewel and were found in a vintage shop outside Rye for £80.
With most of the budget sunk into the bathroom restoration, affordable decoration solutions were needed elsewhere. One of Rowan-Plowden’s tricks is to buy linen from Ikea and transform it into curtains. (‘It worked out at £2 per metre.’) Tired chairs are now covered in vintage textiles; an old banister has a new life as a lamp.
Desirable odds and ends she has acquired over the years include a velvet kissing chair, an antique side table (which makes the living room look ‘posher’), and a green wooden armoire. Bought for £70 at a vintage fair, it has seen several incarnations over the years: as a linen cupboard, a toy cabinet and now a drinks bar. ‘It’s the Madonna of cabinets,’ says Rowan-Plowden.
Francesca designed her upholstered headboard, while the bed is a divan from sussexbeds.co.uk. The bedside table is from homesense.com.
In the main bedroom, the bed has been spruced up with an upholstered headboard. ‘I design headboards for all of my clients,’ she says. ‘You can get a bespoke version for the same price as a mass-produced one, but with personalised trimmings like studs, piping and buttons.’
An old chaise longue (once covered in a ‘hideous print’) was reupholstered in leftover curtain fabric from her mum’s house. It stands by the bedroom window, in front of striped curtains from Dunelm. ‘I’m all about the high and low,’ Rowan-Plowden says. ‘Get the balance right and it’s impossible to tell the difference.’
GET THE LOOK
Mix bargain and blowout pieces to create a vintage vibe for less
