FAMILY. gathering

With heirloom decorations and armfuls of foliage, Kim Scillitoe's home provides a warm setting for festive celebrations

- JO LEEVERS

AIthough Kim and Gavin Scillitoe's daughters Issey and Poppy have now left home, when Christmas rolls around everyone soon reverts to old family traditions. Come December, all four of them head to their local garden centre to pick out a tree. We've been doing this since our girls were little and we still always end up bringing home the tallest tree there,' explains Kim.

Not that that's a problem in this house, with its high ceilings and generous proportions. But while Kim loves decorating their home at this time of year, she got to know the house's character by doing almost the opposite: stripping away anything superfluous to reveal its architecture. One of the first things she did was to take down a set of heavy red curtains that hung at the living room window. They were thick with dust and their dark folds and a pelmet obscured the shape of the window and its delicate leading,' she remembers. 'As soon as they were gone, the beauty of this room emerged and it felt lighter and brighter."