SUNNY SIDE OF THE STREET

Uplifting colour and pattern go hand in hand with repurposed antiques in Amanda Pickett's eclectic home studio in Mallorca

- Photography Brent Darby Words & Styling Ali Heath

In the coastal village of Deia, in Mallorca, Scottish decorator and antiques dealer Amanda Pickett has added her name to a creative constellation of writers, artists, musicians and interior designers who have succumbed to the charms of this world-heritage site, an hour north of the island's capital, Palma.

With a magpie eye, she has turned a rundown 17th-century casa de pescadores (fisherman's cottage) into a creative studio where she can make, transform and imagine. The cottage and her business, Pickett's House, have become a go-to source for both designers and private clients, who share her affinity for the colourful and extraordinary.

Amanda came to Mallorca on a whim eight years ago, with her partner Gary Clarke, in need of a change of scenery to recuperate after the premature arrival of their twin girls. Arriving with all five of their children, a dog and a trailer full of antiques to sell, they fell in love with the bohemian vibe and the unspoilt rugged landscape at the foot of the Teix mountain. Many creatives before her, most famously the author and First World War poet Robert Graves, had fallen for this place. "You don't choose Deia. Deia chooses you," one local woman told the family, as Amanda recalls with a smile. "After a few months of being here, the opportunity came up to rent this woman's home - we've lived there ever since."