INSPIRING
DINING AREA
The walls have been clad in wooden panelling and painted in Canopy, Atelier Ellis. Wall lights, Jamb. Opposite A collection of vintage wooden farm animals is displayed in an antique butterfly box case. Vase, Tat London
it is apt that Anna Phillips’s red-brick home was once a worker’s cottage, because – despite the many changes it has undergone over the century-and-a-bit since it was built – it is still a very practical base for not one but two businesses, as well as home to Anna, her husband Jeff Kightly, their boys Miller and Herbie and their Vizsla, Cosmo.
Anna runs her knitwear business from a room she shares with Jeff, a musician and composer, on the first floor. One half is home to rails of jumpers, while the other is filled with guitars, speakers and a sound booth. ‘It’s a complete contrast,’ laughs Anna. ‘But we’re rarely in here together, as one of us is usually looking after the boys or working elsewhere. It’s a busy house and it’s not big, so it has to be hardworking and hardwearing.’
The couple bought the house in 2007, when they were still living in London. Anna had been working for an antiques and interiors company, and then as a freelance interior designer before, in 2012, setting up Hambro & Miller, which sells Scandinavian-inspired hand-knitted clothing. ‘We wanted to find a place where we would be immersed in the countryside, but also able to get a pint of milk easily and commute to London,’ explains Anna. ‘Now we have beautiful views, but we’re only five miles from the beach. It feels very rural, which was what we wanted for the children and is something that also feeds into my work.’
By the time Anna and Jeff bought the house, it had been robbed of its period features. Doing almost everything themselves, they set about making changes – knocking out the bricked-up fireplaces and putting in surrounds that suit the age of the property, replacing the laminate and carpet flooring, gutting the kitchen and fitting new bathrooms.
HOME PROFILE
Anna Phillips, her husband Jeff Kightly, their boys Miller and Herbie, and dog Cosmo
A two-storey three-bedroom Victorian worker’s cottage with a converted loft in Steyning, West Sussex
KITCHEN
The kitchen extension has cupboards made from scaffolding boards, reclaimed school science lab worktops and an aged zinc-topped island unit. Worktop, Retrouvius. Panelled walls in Double Bone, Shell & Quill, Atelier Ellis. Stone bowl, Ardingly Antiques Fair. Opposite Anna (pictu
