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Inside a fully renovated 19th-century farmhouse

It was during his work on the charming Wiltshire pub The Bradley Hare on the Duke of Somerset’s estate that interior designer James Thurstan Waterworth fell in love with the area. When a neglected 19th-century farmhouse came up for sale on the estate, he and his wife Scarlett Supple, also an interior designer with her own studio, Aldridge & Supple, took the plunge and bought it. It took a lot of work to restore the farmhouse; the plumbing and electrics had not been updated for years and an old cheese maturing room still existed upstairs. But the couple prevailed, and in this episode of Design Notes, they take us through the finished house, where they now live with their daughter Bibi. Together they have filled the house with elegant, earthy colours and beautiful, distinctive antiques. ‘We wanted the house to be pared back and calming, with lots of texture and warmth,’ explains James.

Released on 03/24/2023

Transcript

[footsteps thumping]

[bright jazz music]

The house is an old farmhouse

which was built in the mid 19th century.

As we took over, it was still a working farmhouse

and needed quite a bit of work done

for us to sort of live in a make a family house.

We spent about a year renovating it.

There's multiple rooms dotted around the house

and we sort of removed a couple of walls here and there

to really...

[footsteps clacking]

Sorry.

[bright jazz music]

Working together was interesting.

[James chuckles]

We agreed on a lot of things,

some things we had to compromise on,

but we both had the thought process

that we wanted it to be a family home.

One of us lost one battle and won the other.

[Scarlett] We wanted it to be quite a clean space

that we could layer with antiques and textiles

and all of James's beautiful pieces in his collection.

I tried to add in a bit more color,

you know, that was the tone throughout the designs.

[bright jazz music]

We are currently in the family sitting room.

It used to be split to two rooms.

So where I'm standing was the old hallway.

That would've been the front door originally

and there was a wall across here.

Again, because of the ceiling height,

we wanted to open up and create a bigger family space.

We've kept the beautiful slate flooring.

There was a very small fireplace at the front

and we wanted to open that

and be very much the center of the space.

We had a sofa made from the First Furniture collection.

Everything else fell into place around that.

We've been chopping and changing pieces ever since.

This piece was from our honeymoon and we bought in Kyoto

and it's a 19th century city workers kimono.

We didn't have any idea what we do with it

when we bought it, but we loved the colors

and the textures and the sort of the faded feel.

One of my favorite pieces in the house

is this early 19th century desk.

I bought it in the South of France on a bind trip,

where It did have and still has traces of the red paint.

We've come a kept as much as that as possible.

The walnut is incredibly beautiful and really rich.

[bright jazz music]

So we layered lots of different types of textiles

throughout the house.

We've got antique saddlebags draped on the back of chairs

and just things that we've collected together over time,

antique cushions.

On the window seat, we've got some Indian motif prints.

The actual window seat is a fabric that I designed.

It's part of a collection for Aldridge & Supple.

And it's just really lovely and faded

and inspired by a Japanese fragment

that we found on our honeymoon.

So it's just layering it with really sentimental

but different types of textures and prints.

The curtains are actually lovely old French linen sheets

that we've collected over time

and we made them into curtains throughout the house.

We quite like them being clean and not too fussy and heavy.

I love the way that linen hangs, it's really relaxed.

[bright jazz music]

This is what we call the winter sitting room.

It's the darkest room in the house.

We have east facing small window.

Because of that, we wanted to make it very snug.

So we've painted it a darkish blue-green

and very much sort of focused around the fireplace.

The room itself, in terms of the size

has stayed very similar.

The parquet flooring, we've kept.

And we actually quite like the exposed brick,

so we've kept it primarily 'cause we're slightly lazy

but we do actually like the look of it.

[bright jazz music]

This is the room we spend most of the time.

And the table in particular is my top five pieces,

few pieces I bought specifically for the house

similar region to the cabinet.

So the size obviously, works really well for this space,

the proportions of it but also the wear, the patina

and the sort of the aging of it, the richness of the color,

the movement of the wood, we particularly love.

One of the things we wanted to do

was to elevate the fireplace.

You could see it from all parts of the room

and we wanted it to be a real feature

and focal point of of the space and add theater to the area.

The Catalaunian cabinet,

which is likely from the Pyrenees Mountains

is one of my, I think my favorite piece.

I fell in love with the simplicity, the patina,

and just the concept of it being 3, 400 years old

and yet seemingly perfect in a contemporary setting.

We found this lovely red oven

while we were restoring the house

and we decided to keep it and make a lovely feature of it.

So it's actually a drinks cabinet and we added these doors

using the same reclaimed timber from the island.

My favorite room in the house is the kitchen.

It's where we spend all of our time.

We opened it up so that it connects with the dining space

and it's really lovely when we have friends over

because you're talking or cooking

and everyone either gathers around the island

or is in the sitting area by the fire.

The kitchen drawer that we wanted to keep it

really simple, really minimal.

There's not much ceiling height,

we didn't want have too much going on in the walls

and so everything predominantly is low level.

[Scarlett] The color of the units took a really long-

Oh, yeah, that was the hardest

paint color to choose, yeah. Time to find.

We went through hundreds of samples

but it's an invisible green which is like an army green,

which we love.

The AGA is a '70s which we had repurposed

and runs through electrics,

which on a practical note is amazing

'cause when we pop away, we just switch off

and then back on again when we come back.

This is my favorite piece of joinery

that James actually designed and it's just really beautiful

and you can do anything to it.

And the more you do to it, the better it actually looks.

So the island actually came from leftover wood

when we were designing the bar at the pub

at The Bradley Hare.

We were using sort of 18th century barnwood

and we had a bit leftover.

We thought it'd be quite nice bringing some sort of timber,

a bit of contrast to the brand new units

and also just the practicality of using a worktop,

it's a built-in worktop essentially.

We wanted to open it up

and not be sort of solid to the ground.

Again, because it's not a huge space

by sort of opening it up, it's gives it a bit more air.

[bright jazz music]

The house has four and a half bedrooms.

This being one of the larger ones.

There is a much larger bedroom,

but we actually prefer the coziness

and the snug feeling of this room.

In terms of what we've done with it,

we've added an ensuite, which was previously a corridor

and reconfigured the entry slightly.

For the most parts,

such as the timber flooring and the fireplace,

we've kept hazard.

The fabric of the headboard came from Scarlett's friend

and business partner, Saffron Aldridge.

And yeah, very sweetly, it would've given around 10 meters

which was just enough to make this beautiful bed.

The wall colors, this is actually bone iron ball color

which in different lights looks completely different.

It can look slightly sort of brownness,

sometimes slightly greener.

It's a warm, relatively neutral color

which sort of works with a lot of different tones.

[bright jazz music]

One of the really special things about being here

is just being able to take a break from work.

[Scarlett] We both have studios based in London,

so it's a bit tricky at the moment

to spend too much time here

but we love the balance and feel really lucky

that we can be in London and escape here.

[bright jazz music]

Starring: James Thurstan Waterworth, Scarlett Supple

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