Character building: making our 50s house a home

Anyone who has stayed at one of the Artist Residence hotels would be intrigued by the 50s-built terraced house where the couple who run the eclectic company live. “Given our love of historical buildings, it’s not at all similar,” says Charlie Salisbury, padding around the ground floor of the three-storey house she shares with her husband and business partner, Justin. For the past decade or so they’ve maintained an on-off relationship with the three-bedroom west London home. Expanding their chain of design-led boltholes in London, Brighton, Cornwall and now Oxfordshire has meant long periods away. But upon becoming parents to baby son Blake 18 months ago, they decided it was time to make it a more permanent family base.

“Location-wise, the house is perfect,” Justin says. “The challenge has been making it a space we love. We’re used to working with beautiful features in old houses – sort of undecorating – but here we’ve had to create all the character ourselves.”

Uninspired by the property’s boxy rooms and straight lines, the couple have gone to lengths to add texture and detail. In the living room they’ve exposed original brick walls and created wood panelling from vintage industrial cheeseboards. They’ve transformed a PVC conservatory at the back of the house with cladding. “It was so ugly, but we had an idea to hide the white plastic with pieces of reclaimed timber,” explains Charlie. Read more

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