No.6
SITTING ROOM FOCUS
Changes to this family home allowed a wonderfully laid-back refinement to be restored to the sitting room
FEATURE JANE CRITTENDEN
Claire Totman is passionate about period properties and sympathetic renovations. ‘It’s what my clients come to me for, so I wasn’t put off by this run-down Edwardian house,’ she says. ‘The period architecture was beautifully intact.’
1ARCHITECTURAL BONES
Laminate flooring and white decoration hid the damp around the sitting room window. ‘The huge bay is one of the nicest features and once we’d sorted out the problems, we replaced the plastic frames with traditional sash windows,’ says Claire. ‘The room is impressive with high ceilings and original details we didn’t need to touch.’
2EVOLVED LIVING
At first, Claire decorated in cool grey tones, but once the kitchen extension got underway a couple of years later, she knew the family would migrate into the new space. ‘Now this could become our grown-up sitting room without a TV or toys,’ she says. ‘We had the classic period features in place and I wanted to bring out a more formal elegance.’
3COLOUR PALETTE
Decorating the dark home office in a deep greygreen influenced colours in the adjoining sitting room. ‘A square archway separates them but I treated the room as one by staying with warm tones,’ says Claire. ‘We get a lot of sun in here so walls are light with a green undertone and I
