Creative Solutions

Influenced by Jim's grandfather, who was a radio engineer for MI5, Jim and Chloe's home is filled with eclectic antiques, retro scientific equipment and creative solutions; as Homes & Antiques magazine discovered when they popped in for a visit.  

 

Homes and Antiqu blog - set of three

 

"What characterises this house is its ingenuity. Jim’s grandfather was a radio engineer for MI5 and Jim remembers visiting his house as a child and marvelling at his post-war oak furniture piled with scientific equipment. ‘Our own home probably looks quite similar now,’ he says. Certainly Jim’s office does conjure images of fervent creativity and invention with the piles of reference books and a 1970s educational telephone.

 

Homes and Antiques set of three 2

"Elsewhere, his own handiwork can be spotted. The bookcase, displaying 3,000 books, that runs the four floors of the back staircase was built to hide pipes and electric cables, while the light above the kitchen island was created by Jim from salvaged pieces. ‘I couldn’t find an original chandelier to go here so decided to make one. I stripped a broken 1940s light of its original white globes and brass galleries and fixed them to a brass pipe, then hung it all from an original 1920s ceiling rose. It wasn’t a dissimilar process to making a clock.’"

 

Read the full article online at Homes & Antiques. 

Words: Kate Hallett  Photography: Brent Darby