Surrey Homes | SH111 | April 2024 | Garden Supplement inside

This page: The main wall colour throughout is Farrow & Ball’s Great White with F&B’s
Peignoir used on some feature walls – both feature soft pinky undertones. The sculptural
floating staircase has lighting in the treads and steel cords instead of bannisters
one big room. Working closely with
the project’s builder, Jeremy, and his
site manager son, Joshua, she has
helped to guide Dominic and Eve
through the interior’s construction.
“It can be difficult to visualise
things with a two-dimensional plan
view,” says Eve, “to see the spaces
and imagine living in them.” Victoria
explains how she uses a combination
of CAD and Pinterest, sharing images
through their WhatsApp group, so
that everyone is kept in the loop.
“Communication is key to the
success of a project,” she says,
“and having a team of guys who
treat it as if it was their own
house – so there’s no bodging or
making do. They have pride in their
work and want to get things right.”
“The whole design process started in the
kitchen and flowed out from there. It’s a big
room. I can sit at my computer and move
things around – playing with the shapes is
very useful when designing. We can imagine
the space better – floors, walls, electrics,
pieces of furniture.” Has all the technology
improved the process? Victoria smiles. “It
has just changed the way we are able to work
– when things were on paper the design
was often at a final stage and not so easily
altered. Now we can swap things about
really easily, so there’s more flexibility and
opportunity to keep moving things around.”
Victoria has a knack of choosing offthe-shelf
pieces and styling them so that
they look custom made, which means
that the budget can be used where it’s
needed. Choosing artwork is often part
of the process, but in this case Victoria
hasn’t had to source any pictures – the
multi-talented Jeremy has painted all
the large paintings in the house and his
daughter has produced smaller works,
with beautiful pressed wildflowers.
The kitchen units are an off-the-shelf
design, but Victoria has added in bespoke
details – unit handles and a nifty solution to
the corner cupboard issue, splashing out
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