House Style with Simon and Sophia Cook
After showing us around their self-renovated family home in Croydon, Simon (aka Cookie) and Sophia Cook share their house style.
You’re happiest at home when?
Having a long slow soak together in our huge double-ended bath in the morning. There’s not much space for mummy and daddy time when you have two kids under two. Our long baths together in the mornings are something we never could do before we had this bathroom, and now I don’t think we could live without them.
How would you describe the interiors of your house?
People often say that they have either a ‘modern’ house or a ‘period’ house, I would describe our house as ‘everything in-between’. It has design cues from all the periods that have come and gone during its 110-year existence.
The bedroom is pretty authentically Edwardian with William Morris everywhere and a vintage bed from 1910 when the house was built. The wallpaper was even printed from the original wooden blocks unearthed from the William Morris Archive archive as part of a television documentary.
The bathroom is quite 1920/30s Art Deco with our monolithic slab of a bath. The loft is a bit of mismatch of periods, but feel it has a wartime 1940/50’s vibe with the campaign desk and old plan chest and various period industrial features.
The kitchen is quite 1960/70s in colour and use of plywood for the cabinets. The children’s room I feel is quite modern but in a nostalgic sort of way. The front room is a bit of a mismatch of eras and styles, but as with the rest of the house, it’s really the colour that holds everything together, not consistency in design styles.
If you could only save one thing, what would it be?
The single most expensive thing we bought for the house was the ESSE cooker, so I suppose it should be that. But it’s made of cast iron and weighs a ton, so there’s no way we could shift it!
What was the last thing you bought for the house?
It isn’t very homely! Because we’re in lockdown and gyms are closed, we bought a fancy exercise bike so that we can stay fit at home and still be within earshot of the children.
Top three coffee table books?
We don’t have a coffee table, and coffee table books aren’t really our thing. The last coffee table book I bought was East London Homes, but that was mainly because I’m friends with the author, Sarah Bagner. We just buy picture books for the kids at the moment. The Garden by Emma Giuliani is a pop-up book we have out in the front room because it’s so beautifully illustrated.
If money was no object, what changes would you make?
We made a choice when we renovated the house to not build an extension because the house is plenty big enough for our family already and we love it as it is. We’d like to replace the upstairs plastic windows with something more authentic like the beautiful wooden ones downstairs. The only thing left on our to-do list really is the outbuildings in the garden. We could do with a new shed, the greenhouse needs some repairs and maybe we’ll upgrade the summer house at the back.
You’re having people over for dinner: what do you cook?
It’ll either be a British or Jamaican classic – we both love the food we grew up with. When we have people round in the evening we don’t want to be slaving in the kitchen making something complicated, we just want the throw something in the oven like a roast beef or maybe curried goat and rice. Something that we can cook slowly and forget about while we have a drink with our guests. But if the sun is shining, probably some jerk chicken on the BBQ.
What does a Sunday here look like?
Sunday is usually house day. The floors get mopped, the walls get dusted, repairs get made and, if there’s any spare time, Cookie might make something for the house out of the huge wood pile in the garden.
What are the best things about the neighbourhood?
Croydon is great because we don’t have a car and it’s very self-contained, with a high street that has everything we need. Getting into London for work is surprisingly quick considering how far out we are – only 15 minutes from Croydon station which is a leisurely walk away from the house.
How long will you be here for?
If we renovated this house to sell on in the short term, we wouldn’t have done it like this. We’ve created a home for us to live in that might not be everyone’s cup of tea and we plan to be here for the long-term.
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