Telling stories

As a set decorator for period dramas, Jo Kornstein is adept at spotting furniture and decorative pieces that strike just the right historic note. But she always looks for an extra element, too. ‘For me, interiors are all about storytelling and that often comes from textures,’ she explains. ‘Visually, a flat wall is far less interesting than one that catches the light with its dips and dents, and materials such as linen, wood and ceramics are what add comfort and character to a home.’

This approach informed the way that she reworked and decorated the rooms of her family’s cottage in Whitstable on the Kent coast. Jo and her husband, Henry Littlechild, a commercials director, discovered the property on a weekend visit to the seaside town 12 years ago. Before heading back to London, the couple went for lunch at The Old Neptune, a well-known beachfront pub, and as they sat enjoying the last moments of their break, they noticed a ‘For Sale’ sign outside a nearby house.

‘It was a real ‘what if?’ moment,’ Jo remembers. ‘We returned home and, first thing on Monday, we rang the agents.’ By the afternoon, they had made the journey back to Whitstable and put in an offer on the house. ‘I’m not usually that impulsive, but it was the best decision we ever made,’ Jo says. ‘The cottage immediately felt like a lovely home with stories to tell, which is irresistible to me.’

The 19th-century terraced cottage started out as a weekend home for Jo, Henry and their sons, Ned, now 13, Jim, 11, and Frank, eight. ‘For the first three years, we did very little to the house. We didn’t even paint it,’ she remembers. ‘We just wanted to enjoy every minute of being here and more-or-less camped out, with the kids sleeping on mattresses on the floor.’ As time went on, the family noticed the balance of their lives began to shift. ‘Packing up each Sunday evening started to feel harder and harder, so we decided to move to Whitstable permanently,’ says Jo.