The Age Of Change

‘I have come down in the world,’ says former House & Garden UK editor Susan Crewe.

I used to live on the top floors of my London house, with a garden on the roof, and now my flat is on the ground floor, with a tiny garden leading off the sitting room. To be honest, I was getting a little weary of lugging suitcases and shopping up the stairs, and it was a chore taking compost up to the roof terrace. I am getting older and one day I hope to be really old and old people last longer if they do not fall down stairs. So I decided to sell the top floors and use the proceeds to pull apart the ground floor and reassemble it. My daughter had the foresight to marry a brilliant architect and I have the good fortune to have a cousin who is a brilliant decorator and also a dear friend, so choosing whom to enlist on the project was not a problem.

It might have been risky to work with relations and friends, but we were clear about costs and responsibilities from the start and set up a buffer zone between client, architect and decorator.