Open House

Paul and Tim designed their Victorian villa with rich tones and luxe finishes, plus a little hotel-chic style thrown in to make their regular stream of visitors feel at home

- Amelia Thorpe

‘What do you think this is, a hotel?’ is a question usually laced with sarcasm, but not so for interiors photographer Paul Craig and his solicitor partner Tim Dawson. ‘We genuinely love having friends and family to stay,’ says Paul, whose family hails from Bristol, while Tim’s is from Yorkshire. Regular guests include cousins from Australia (‘They make us their base for the summer – and get more post than we do,’ says Tim) and an aunt who makes her annual trip to London for The Archers fans’ meet-up.

So when their south London home was feeling just a bit too cramped for the steady stream of visitors, the couple decided it was time to look for a larger house. As luck would have it, on an adjacent street, they spotted a ‘property with potential’: a quirky Victorian end-of-terrace on a corner plot with an unusual side wing. But that was probably all that was good about it, as Tim explains. ‘The neighbours called it “The Witch’s House” because it looked haunted, with curtains rotting at the windows and holes in the roof,’ he says. ‘The local children used to cross the road rather than walk past the front door, because it looked so sinister.’