Surprise creations

Natasha Redcliffe breathed fresh life into this Victorian stationmaster's house, combining vintage finds with DIY flourishes to give this once-neglected home an elegant, theatrical edge

- JANET GLEESON

Colour and fun, with a splash of the unexpected and a sprinkling of economy are the tenets that underpin Natasha Redcliffe's pragmatic approach to decorating. When she and her husband Ben moved to their home in Tunbridge Wells four years ago, they had little sense of the scale of the task ahead. 'It was our first house and we were inexperienced,' she explains. We fell in love with it, bought it, then realised that like most old houses - there was a huge amount of work to do.'

The house that captured their hearts was built in 1870 for the stationmaster at Tunbridge Wells. Set over four floors, it has a kitchen, dining room and snug in the basement, a hallway, living room and a studio room on the floor above, with bedrooms and bathrooms on the top two floors and a cloakroom on every level. Sitting in the centre of a curved terrace, the property was unlike any of the adjacent houses (where other station employees once lived) and its location, close to the town's Pantiles and Common, was instantly appealing. But we mainly fell in love with it for the hallway and stairs,' says Natasha. Being on the curve, one side wall runs diagonally, so the stairs are on an angle and they go all the way up through the house."