This British Artist Painted Every Detail in Her One-of-a-Kind Home
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I grew up in Virginia, where the culture, architecture, and interior design are often closely linked to England, so much so that many of the inhabitants have a specific lilt that leans British (just ask someone from Richmond, Virginia, to say tomato and you'll understand what I mean), but my love of English design hit me later in life. I did not appreciate the acres of floral chintz fabrics and European antiques and nods to English country houses all around me growing up. I gravitated toward a simpler, cleaner aesthetic.
It really wasn't until a few years ago when I observed a newer, more youthful take on the English look that my opinion began to shift. I was influenced by the personality-driven, jubilant work of young tastemakers on the rise, like Matilda Goad, Beata Heuman, and Louise Roe. The spaces they create are feminine and happy and nod ever so faintly to the Bloomsbury Group and their eccentric offerings to the design ethos. There is a decidedly romantic bent to the whole look, and I simply can't get enough of it.
So imagine my delight when I learned about another young English tastemaker, the decorative painter Amy FitzGeorge-Balfour, embellishing mirrors for Wicklewood in London, one of my favorite shops, and began following her house adventure.
At the specific moment I found her, Balfour was pregnant with triplets and renovating a Tudor in East Sussex. She and her husband had discovered the property only a few months before. "It's the oldest house in the village with incredible history," Balfour says of the circa-15th-century Wealden hall house, which once served as the gatekeeper's cottage and lodge to a sprawling estate nearby. The couple had their work cut out for them.
The house was Grade II listed, which is similar to being on the National Register of Historic Places in the United States, meaning it possessed enough architectural significance to warrant preservation. There was no running water, the electrical was rudimentary and strung via wires between rooms, and there was ample rotting timber and lots of peeling wallpaper. "But it was so charming and begging to be loved back into a family home," Balfour says.
And the house was certainly in the right hands. Balfour grew up in a family with a creative streak, went on to study illustration in London, and later worked for Colefax and Fowler, one of the most iconic interior design firms in modern English history. There, she learned under the tutelage of Janie Money, before beginning work on her first house and starting a family. That's when the mood to paint struck. "While I was pregnant, my mother and I took a course with the decorative painter Melissa White at Charleston Farmhouse, and I left hugely inspired, and from that moment on I wanted to paint anything I could get my hands on," she remembers, laughing. Images of her work made their way to Instagram, and Balfour began getting all sorts of commissions. "I find painting hugely satisfying," she says. "It really is a wonderful way to switch off. Nothing gives me more pleasure than taking these snippets and applying them to a surface with paint."
Balfour brought her talent into many corners of her current house. But before those final layers began, she worked alongside an architect to maintain the original elements of the house, while also adding much needed modern systems. The beauty is that it all looks as if it were constructed long, long ago. And that's thanks to Balfour's careful eye for authenticity. "When it came to choosing finishes, it was important to me that we did not go too modern, or too slavishly traditional, which could have risked coming across as twee."
To help bring her vision to life, she drew furniture plans and created intricate mood boards. "I wanted to be bold with color and chose to use color on the millwork of the house mostly, rather than the walls, to emphasize the architecture," she says. She also chose a good bit of vintage lighting and plumbing to bring the right sheen of character to things.
In the kitchen and laundry, Balfour splurged on in-frame cabinets and installed pine flooring over the existing concrete. "It felt bright, and I knew I didn't want to use tiles or even limestone, as I did not feel it would have been there originally."
Color, often in the form of her decorative embellishments, also lightened the disposition of the Tudor interior. "The house is quite dark, and I was conscious of that," she says. Using bolder colors on the millwork and mixing old and new textiles added the right amount of cheer.
"Where there may be a darker corner," she says, "interesting, strong color on a chair or sofa stops a space from feeling gloomy." On mantels and even doorways, Balfour's art pulls it all together. "My hand-painted details are an expression of the things that bring me joy, and I think they contribute something completely unique."
And smack in the middle of Balfour reimagining her new family home, she gave birth, changing her family of three to a family of six. With her newborns in tow, she continued work, even stenciling the guest bedroom upstairs while the tiny new trio napped on the bed as she applied paint. That tireless effort paid off, and these days you'll find all four children playing tag downstairs. "I think they enjoy the house very much," she says.
At the end of my time with Balfour, she served soup made from vegetables grown in her extraordinary garden. She is kind, soft-spoken, and quick to laugh. As a fellow young mother, I wished she was just down the street and not across the Atlantic. For now, I'll just have to continue to observe her many projects from afar, and I cannot wait to see what she does next.
Reprinted fromThe House Romantic: Curating Memorable Interiors for a Meaningful Life, by Haskell Harris. Text Copyright © 2024 Haskell Harris. Photographs Copyright © 2024 Charlotte Zacharkiw. Used by permission of Abrams, an imprint of Harry N. Abrams, Inc., New York. All rights reserved.
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