There is not a single white wall in designer Anna Hayman’s Ringmer home. Every flat surface is splashed with colour, from the inky dining room to the striking black kitchen.
“White is a strange noncolour to me,” she explains, as we drink coffee on burnt orange velvet sofas. “I feel like it blocks emotion – and I’m a very emotional person.” Even the ceilings have been painted to match the walls. “When I see a bold colour on a wall but a white ceiling it feels to me like someone just hasn’t committed to the colour.” A lack of commitment is not a charge one could level against Hayman, a petite, confident blonde in towering snakeskin platform boots. But it helps, she explains that she has found the house she wants to live in until she is old. “When you’re not worried about resale value, you don’t worry about painting the door frames gold.”
Hayman moved into the 1920s property in 2017, with psychotherapist husband Henry, their two boys Harrison, 10, and Spencer, 7, and Myrtle the dachshund. “Everything was woodchipped – including the ceilings – but that was the only issue. We didn’t have to make any structural changes.” She was in the process of setting up her design company when they moved. “I thought, great, I can make this place my canvas. And that’s what I did for a while. But it’s a lot of upheaval for the people you live with if you’re always changing their living space.” Today, as demand for Hayman’s work continues to grow – her designs are stocked everywhere from Liberty to New York’s Bergdorf Goodman – she has relocated her work to studios in nearby Easons Green that she shares with a swordsmith and a carpenter. But the house remains a showcase of her talents as a designer.
Denne historien er fra March 2020-utgaven av Sussex Life.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent ? Logg på
Denne historien er fra March 2020-utgaven av Sussex Life.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
TAKE YOUR TIME
Dean Edwards’ new cookbook features delectable recipes that you can slow cook or stick in the oven. Here’s a selection of the best
Decorative art
Not simply functional, treat your walls like an extension of your personality
ON THE FRONT FOOT
The rugby legend took the reins at Sussex County Cricket Club in 2017, rekindling his love for a sport that first won his heart on the village cricket fields of North Yorkshire
NAKED AMBITION
In the 1980s, Christine and Jennifer Binnie partied with Boy George and Marilyn and bared all as performance art collective The Neo-Naturists. Now they are working together to gain the recognition they feel they deserve
ROCKET MAN
Astronaut Tim Peake has come a long way since growing up in Westbourne and attending Chichester High School for Boys: 248 miles above Earth, to be precise. But, he says, life on the International Space Station has a lot in common with family caravanning holidays
Revolution man
Lewes’ most famous resident Thomas Paine may be the greatest propagandist who ever lived. But how did a humble customs and excise officer ignite the touchpaper for revolution in not one but two countries?
THE DIARY
17 exciting things to do this month in East and West Sussex
All in a day's work
Meet Tim Dummer, who has helped keep Midhurst’s Cowdray Estate shipshape for an impressive five decades
My favourite Sussex
Bruce Fogle is an author and a vet with a practice in London who has lived in West Sussex with his wife, the actress Julia Foster, since 1989. He recently became president of RSPCA Mount Noddy near Chichester
10 OF THE BEST Meat-free restaurants in Brighton and Hove
Brighton is often rated one of the most vegan-friendly cities in the UK. What these restaurants prove is that plant-based food doesn’t have to be puritanical – at all of these places you’ll find big flavours and a desire to push the envelope
