A Charming English Barn Transformed Into an Artist’s Countryside Home | House Tour

Hi, Homeworthy. I'm SJ. Welcome to my home in the Chilterns. Come on in. You're watching Homeworthy, where we believe every home has a story. Hi, I'm SJ Axelby. I'm an artist and author. Welcome to my home in the Chilterns, England. So we moved here from old Amersham to this kind of leafy part of Buckinghamshire to just to get a bit more space. So we are connected into London on the Tube, but we also overlook rolling countryside. So that's just delightful. The house is grade two listed. It's a barn, which we converted about five years ago. And I also have my studio, my working studio here too. The day we moved, I really hated it. But actually, I think, you need to kind of give it time to grow on you. And this certainly did. It's full of kind of quirky nooks and crannies and interesting bits. But we ended up kind of renovating the whole house and turning it upside down from the kitchen that used to be on the street. Now it overlooks the garden, which you'll see in a bit. So the barn was actually part of the house next door. And actually, the neighbour on the other side, he used to play here. He actually lived in the house next door. And he had his train track in here. But it was actually just a working barn full of hay bales. And I think it dates back to 1731. And it was actually the garden that drew us to this barn in the first place. It's about an acre of land, which was owned by farmers. And it just felt delightfully rural and a huge undertaking. It was converted in the 80s with lots of orange pine tongue and groove, which we pulled off to reveal the kind of original beams. And we really wanted to kind of restore the barn back to what it would have originally been like. So welcome to my sitting room. This is the heart of the house. It's a bit of a higgledy-piggledy room with a big beam in the middle. This is one of the ones that we stripped back that horrible orange pine tongue and groove from. So I love the warm kind of peachy colour that we've got in here. I have changed this colour, though, multiple times. It's been blue, it's been brown. We've kept these curtains so you can see the palette that I've probably used as the kind of starting point. I love layering lots of textures and patterns. So the Welsh blanket, a bit of tartan. This is one of my favourite paintings. It's a print by Ocean Byrne. The tulips just dancing there just make me really happy. The leg is an antique. It would have been a shop prop for stockings. I just thought it was really fun. I also like these, collect these little shoelaces. These I got in Menorca, little pairs of children's ones. And this one's a ballet, so for a ballet shoe. Marbles are a really big part of my life. I still have all of my childhood marbles and I can still name every single one. I also love a bit of solitaire. This is one of my favourite vases by SJ Pottery in the States. It's a take on the mocha ware. I just think it's gorgeous and obviously the colours work really well in here. The lampshades, one that I stole from my mother's house, it's a little bit ripped, but it's a beautiful old one. Oh, this was from another friend of mine, Annabel Smith Interiors. I painted it bright red because I just thought it would be a bit more fun, that colour. I love the childlike quality of this painting. I bought it from a friend and she hand delivered it to me. These are really interesting. I bet you can't guess what they are. They're actually Victorian Christmas tree lights and they would have had the lights inside them. These are crazy to get hold of these days and worth an absolute fortune. I put it on this old bottle, French bottle stand. I just think they're so fun. This mirror I made by obviously glue gunning shells on it, but my dad and my late father, he helped me construct it and make sure that the string on the back is sturdy so that it's not going to fall off. This was like an embroidery that I did when I was 13 and my grandparents, they framed it. I just remember the feeling that, wow, someone values my work so much that they're willing to pay properly to have it framed. Really, I think they were part of an inspiration for my love of creativity and they clearly valued it enough. This was on the wall in their home and when they passed away, it was given to me. It really is one of my favourite objects. It's an abstract kind of jellyfish type embroidery. This was by Gavin Houghton. I swapped a painting. We did a painting swap. I painted his home in Tangier and I saw this one of his. He's such a talented artist. I love this. It's a very loose watercolour of Chinese lanterns. This is antique ribbons. It would be a salesman's trade card that they would show, showing all the colours. I probably shouldn't have it out here in the light, but that just makes me smile. This is so fun. This catalogues random objects that we found, like double hula hoops. There's a double shreddy in here. My daughter had a massive splinter that had to be surgically removed. That's in there. What else have we got? This one's sweet. You and your spouse will be happy in your life together and we are. Lots of other bits we found in the garden. This was a good one. It's a kissing twiglet. That made the shelf. My son bought me that. That's really precious. He bought me that in Sweden. I love a gallery wall. Obviously, this is a mishmash of all sorts of objects. This is a collar. It would have been a collar on a blouse, I suppose. Handmade things, prints. These are my prints. Botanical prints. Just have fun with it. These are the original gluggle jugs. You see them everywhere now, but these are the old antique ones. I think my mother gave me one and my friend Amy gave me another one from Rock the Heirloom. I love a bit of amethyst. These are fun. These were from my friend, Annabelle, again. There's a lot of stuff going on. I love these. It's a dandelion head in resin. They make these, I think it's in Wales. Half a Grange. I think it's Wales. Anyway, I once saw one in a bed and breakfast we stayed in and I searched and searched and I managed to find one. I just think it's the most special thing. I've got a few now. So yeah, just found objects that mean something to me. Oh, this is crazy. This is something fun to show you. This is a bagatelle. I don't know whether... So you put the marble in the bottom like this and then you ping it. It's going to go. Oh yeah. And then it lands in one of the numbers. So that's one of my... That's Kit Kemp's hallway. This is a beautiful old... I think it would have been printed, but my mum gave me this. It's one of my special pieces from my mum. I must show you this. My grandfather was an antique furniture restorer. Well, this was a chair he made for me as a child and it's too precious. And obviously here, all the marks of the children as they've grown. Yeah, my son's actually even taller than that now, but they're all taller than me. This was a fun project. Again, I think when you're creative, you'd kind of... This is slightly dented, but I had real fun. I learned to paint lampshades with Tess Newell and this was my creation to fit obviously in with the decor. But I mean, it was really difficult. Actually, I'm used to working in watercolour and this was in acrylic paint, but I think the effect's quite fun. Or marbles. As I said, I can tell you every single one if you want to know. I've always loved interiors. My mother was an antique ceramic restorer, so I grew up with kind of sinks and loos filling our kind of entranceway where my mum would actually kind of piece together and make them good for a reclamation company. My grandfather, he was an antique furniture restorer and I ended up doing a degree in textile design, which is really what kind of fuelled my love for colour and pattern. Painting is part of my DNA. Before my mother and my grandfather, my great-great-grandfather, he was the art teacher to Queen Victoria's children. Now I'm not going to pretend I'm anything like as skilled as he was, but you know, I've got some of the letters here from when he was in the palace after Prince Albert died. You know, that's the black-edged paper. And all of these are beautifully illustrated. This one's from Osborne House. There's others from Buckingham Palace. And then his sister, she was a miniature watercolourist, but she travelled the world. And I am the custodian of this beautiful travel sketchbook and I feel really honoured and privileged to have this. So now we're stepping into the kitchen. This was actually the new part that we added on, but we wanted it to feel like it had always been here. So as you can tell, the floor looks like it's as old as the rest of the house. So when we first did the kitchen, actually it was all white, but actually I'm always liking, like to revamp things. So we put in this lovely buttery colour, which I feel kind of works in all seasons, and then paired it with this, I think it's Eating Room Red. The thing that I made here was this little skirt to cover all the clutter, because I think if you, in this house, if you open anything, there's loads of clutter behind. But, you know, a little curtain, cafe curtain, will hide a multitude of sins. This is my COVID lockdown cake. It's marmalade and pecan cake, which we will be devouring later. The original countertop we put in, the island was much smaller and it had a white countertop, but we extended it. I quite like this because it works really well with the anthracite doors. So I think you can mix and match things. We use Duvall for our kitchen. They dream me to work with. I will show you in my favourite cupboard because it's pink inside, but look at all that. As I said, I do love a bit of clutter and a bit of ceramics. So yeah. Anyway, let's shut that mess away. We do love entertaining and cocktails, so there's always pretty glasses to be found. But I also, at Christmas, we like to make our own. So we get those pens and we make, there's usually someone's name on it. So we make a glass for everybody at Christmas that comes. So they usually take them with them though. I think that might be my sister's. These plates I particularly love. They're just, look, a little snowflake design. And every day we use the Spode willow pattern. I collect it. Whenever I see it, we just pick up a mishmash of it. I love these ones, these lovely kind of, these are crisp bowls. You can never have too many crisp bowls, but I just think everyday items that you use should be pretty. So there's no white plates. There's a few white bowls, but no, that's our everyday China. So these are antique meat drainers. They're quite collectible now and they would have been, they would sit in the top of a plate, put the meat on top and then the juices drain through. I mean, this is, they're beautiful, but quite hard to come by. And one of my favorite little jelly molds. I've got a whole collection of these you'll see, but that one particularly, it's got a pretty intricate design inside. So the majority of the lighting in the house is by Jim Lawrence. I love their lighting. It looks like it's antique. It's not, in fact, there's a bowl missing. That's real, that's a real kitchen for you. But they're just beautiful. I love putting in kind of nice bespoke carpentry work. So things like the shelving here, just to display everyday items. It was inspired by the wonderful bit in Liberty where they show all these plates and I kind of copied it. These were from my mother. These are old TG Green, their gingham design, French glasses. These ones were from the collab that John Lewis did with collagery. I love, these are old antique canisters from France. I love little, just little, finding little things for everyday objects. I love that. I've collected some baguette baskets from France here. They always come in handy when we're entertaining. So this is the kitchen table. This was the most beautiful table. It still is, but it's protected now by this Beate Humann oilcloth. Again, in the willow pattern, which I love. My favorite thing in the room though, is this. It was my present from my girlfriends. They thought I was bonkers asking for this little 1858 house and they were, what on earth, SJ, are you going to put in there? And I said, I want to use it to keep my chutney. So this is my chutney cupboard. Look, got all the chutney inside. Do love a cheese board in this house. That is such a beautiful salt glazed funnel. Look at that. Again, that was another present for my big birthday. You can never have too many tonic spas. So I love this space with all the light. We added this onto the extension because you can sit here and really feel like you're outside. So we've got this rolling Chiltern countryside view that is good in all weathers. In the summer like this, actually sometimes it's too bright, but in winter, even when it's snowing, it's just breathtaking. So this is probably our favorite spot to sit. We're always on that side. So this is my favorite room in the house. This was actually the shed. There was a little shed and we were just going to make this into one wall. And then I was like, why don't we just do a little slidey door into it? So this is the pantry of dreams. This is as it, as you find us, it's a bit extreme. So the wallpaper in here, I think it's a company called Brasta Peter, if that's how you pronounce it, but it just feels like spring is on the walls in here. I'm actually changing it though. I'm changing it to a beautiful trailing tomato by Bertioli. My friend, Karen Hibbert, she designed it and I can't wait for that to go up. So the heart of the home in this house with two teenagers is definitely the pantry. It's the pantry of dreams. It's got a little slidey door and you go in and it's kind of in lockdown. It came into its own, but it still is kind of one of those aghast. It does feel like you could feed 5,000 from that pantry. That's where you'll mainly find my children. We love entertaining outside. This pergola I designed, and again, my builder thought I was crazy, but I wanted to put these hazel hurdles in the ceiling. It's actually got a really ugly plastic roof on top, but it means that we can sit out here when it's sunny and to get some shade, but also when it's raining, which is quite often in the UK. The table and chairs are from Ochre. This one's from Neptune. These are Dalesford. Again, our everyday blue and white plates and geraniums. I love to grow geraniums. These ones are overwintered. I mean, they are absolutely enormous and I hope that they will keep again for next year over this winter, but look at that view. I mean, that's a dinner with a view. So again, more collections. I have a plate wall. I love this green against the black of the timber and this is our apple juice that we have made. Our friends down the road, they juice our own apples that we grow in the orchard at the end there, so we have that made up every year. We got loads last year because it was a mast year and I think it may well be the same this year. That basically means that everything comes together and it's a bumper crop, so we have got bottles and bottles of it. Welcome to my studio. I am so blessed to have this space to work in and look at the view. So this is where the magic happens. As you can see, it's a working studio. This is about as tidy as it gets. So my paints. I love pens. I mainly work in watercolour and I have lots of different brands that I work with. These are all my trusty sets. I love these pastels. These are the original paintings for my new book. So these are some of the tablescapes that are inside. I mean, this is the whole book. In fact, no one's seen this. So you've got, this is how I deliver it to the publisher. Mushrooms and some things I say, don't you? Conkers. So yeah, this is a little hint at what's inside here. Actually, you can see that was my, that was in my sitting room. There's another little curtain that I made. I love this. This is Antoinette Poisson, French fabric. I just, their stuff is, and the same, the kitchen one is also Antoinette Poisson, but this is just a gallery wall of some of my things. I mean, it's always changing. Actually, and some of them are actually by other people. So that's one of the people from Room Portrait Club. They did an embroidery. This one, I mean, this was, somebody did this. It was a print they sent me. That was a real treat to get. These are from when I was about 17, little prints that I did. These were some of the rooms from the first book, Interior Portraits. This one here that I painted. So Alexander Tolstoy's, Gavin Houghton, some Miles Red. And so, and obviously my very messy, busy notice board. So another thing that I've collected over the years are these beautiful old antique jelly moulds, the China ones, and each one's a different shape. And I haven't actually made jelly in them though, but I just think that they are a really fun, fun thing to display on a shelf. So I started painting interiors in lockdown. I had to shield like many did, and I wanted to paint the places that I longed to be in or the rooms that inspired me. And so that's how I really started off. And I would post what I called a sketch a day on Instagram, and it just kind of took off from there. And I had the idea that I would do a book because I hadn't seen a book that was just of interior painting. And I approached a few publishers and, you know, wow, you know, got lucky. And, and that's how my first book came out just after lockdown. So yeah, feel very lucky. So after Interior Portraits, I was asked by Harper Collins to do a travel book. So I painted all the hotels and pubs and museums around the world that again inspired me from the Cipriani in Venice to the Hamyard Hotel in London. And that was a real treat to do. I then had the idea for a book about living with each season. And that's my new one that's coming out. It's called Seasonal Living. And it's really embracing everything that every season has to offer in the home and in the garden. So, you know, in springtime, preparing the garden for the for the year ahead, some loads of different kind of recipes, and anecdotes from other creatives, gardeners, and wonderful people that have contributed to kind of make it a book that you can just pick up. It's a bedside table book, this one, it's a smaller one than my other two books, but all hand painted. There's conkers and leaves and walks and stars and clouds and you name it, it's it's all packed into this book that celebrates every season. Welcome to my cabin. This is the most delicious place that we use year round. It was designed by a company called Red Sky Shepherds Huts, but we went in and we just said, can you do this? Can you do this? Everything that they did, we changed from the lighting to the wood. If you notice, the panels of the wood aren't consistent. Every detail, they worked with us to create this really magical space in the garden. It was inspired by a trip we took years ago to Deacons Inn in Big Sur, California, a place that is just a real treat of a place to visit. By day, this is somewhere where I wrote my book, but by night, this turns into our little cosy drinking den. As you can see, we've got wine glasses and nibbles and crisp bowls, and we've even got a little icebox here ready just where my husband and I can hide away, light the log burner, and just really properly relax after a hard day. Every detail, as I said, the whole thing was bespoke. The wall color, the lighting, we used Jim Lawrence lighting again. The wood burner, we asked them to spray a separate color. They had tiles that looked lovely, but I wanted to use these beautiful marbled button-may tiles, and they found a way to do it. We've created this truly unique space that really feels like an old cabin. It's so atmospheric with a bit of candlelight, as I said, in the evening with a well-earned glass of wine. Oh, golly, my sense of style. It's a mishmash of just things that mean something to me. As I said, I love color and pattern, but actually, I'm probably a bit softer in my own home than the rooms that I like to paint, but it's layering of cushions and fabrics and textures and pattern, and then interwoven in that are all of the antiques that I've grown up with. My mom keeps giving me bits, which is just delicious, and photographs, paintings. I love collections of things. That's the other thing you'll see around here. There's collections of jelly molds. I think I've got about 50. I love ceramics because, obviously, I got that from my mother. Having lots of clutter, this is probably the tidiest you'll ever see it, a mishmash of stuff all put together and comfortable. I don't want anything to be too precious. This is definitely a dog-on-the-sofa kind of house. This is the laundry, probably the most busy room in the house. It used to be the dining room. We put this wall in. I don't know whether you can see the little shelf up there, the borrowed light, where I've got a collection of little old glass bottles. Then this was the kitchen window, the original kitchen window. We made it into a shelf for all my vases. We also put in a secret door to my husband's study, but no one's allowed in there. It's out of bounds, but look, little pocket door. In here, again, you can't see inside, but there's a laundry chute from upstairs. This was all done by Deval. They did an amazing job. This has been in five years, no longer than that, six years, so it still looks like they've just put it in. Again, another bit of carpentry, similar to the one in the kitchen, to house my collection of lovely blue and white meat platters. That's fun. Come on through to the guest bedroom. This used to be the kitchen, but we reconfigured it. This was the front door so that we could house a little guest bedroom space. It's really nice because you shut the door here and they've got their own little guest space. There's a downstairs loo and shower around the corner. Then in here, come on in, this is the little twin guest room. Up at the top here is my connection of little Art Deco fans that I picked up in Hungerford at a little antique shop. Don't they look sweet up there? I think they are probably best kept up there for safety. This is a Robert Kime wallpaper. If you look too hard, it makes your eyes go funny, but it's gentle and just shows off the lovely antique bed heads. It's a really cute place to stay. I love a fluted sink. I've searched high and low for as many for this house as possible. I think I've got four. This one, my builders thought I was bonkers, but I just think it's so darling. Look. I made the little skirt for it. Not very well, but I just love these old sinks. These are tiles by Duvall. It's a fun sink. This was our bedroom before, but we made it into a dressing room. Then this is the bedroom now. This was our bedroom window before. What we did was, this was the outside of the house, but we wanted to expose all the original beams, so we did that. We made this beam, though, look like it's really old by beating it up and painting it, but actually it's a brand new room. This is a brand new beam and brand new room, but we get to keep some of the old charm. These are original BTC lighting, and these are painted to look like marble. I got them in Anthropologie, but it's this wonderful artist, and I've forgotten the name, but I just think they could be in any room, couldn't they? The cushion was my grandfather's cushion that my mum had, and then I had. I grew up with that William Morris willow pattern design on the cushion there in the corner. Then the blanket, my mum knitted me. I think the best compliment someone could give me about my home would just be able to come in, put their feet up on the sofa and feel comfortable and loved. That would be the best compliment. What gives a home soul are the people in it, but also you can feel the people in homes that have lived there before. Actually, in this barn, we don't have that because it was only converted in the 80s, but the last house that I lived in, I could feel the hundreds of years of people that had lived in that house, not in a kooky way, but in a warming way. I like a house that's lived in. Home is a sanctuary. It's a safe, warm, cozy place where you can breathe and just be, and that's what home means to me. Thanks for coming, Homeworthy. It's been so lovely to share my home with you. Bye. Thanks for watching. Be sure to go to homeworthy.com for exclusive content, shopping guides, and so much more.