A Work Of Art

Lesley Seeger’s once-gloomy cottage is now brimming with bright colours, bold patterns and her own eye-catching artwork

- Lesley Seeger's

I loved living in the city, but when I moved into my partner, Michael’s 18th-century cottage in a rural hamlet in Yorkshire, I saw it as a golden opportunity to develop my landscape paintings. Deep down, I’m also a country girl at heart,’ says artist Lesley.

There was just one drawback. The cottage was so small that there was barely enough room for her easel.

‘There were two rooms upstairs, and two downstairs,’ she recalls. ‘First of all, we built a small studio in the garden so I could continue working from home, while we worked out what to do with the cottage. Michael had bought the house in 2010 and had already had planning permission to build an extension so, as soon as we could, we got the builders in and moved back into my house in York until the extension was finished.’