A colour consultant's unexpectedly understated Georgian cottage, full of budget savvy hacks
There is a joke in Harriet Slaughter’s family that if something stands still for long enough, it will get painted. ‘My mum and granny all loved painting furniture, so it must run in my blood,’ says Harriet, who swapped a career in floristry to become a colour consultant in 2022. It was a built-in pantry-style cabinet that she decided to paint soon after she moved into her Kingston cottage that got her particularly excited by the potential of colour combinations when she painted it in Paint & Paper Library’s rusty brown ‘Masai’ and poppy pink ‘Rhubarb’. ‘It just showed me how much fun you can have with colour and it left me thinking, “where can I do that again?”’ she recalls.
Harriet and her husband, the cook, food writer and podcast host Ben Benton, bought the cottage in 2020, moving in just as the pandemic took hold, while Harriet was still working as a florist. They had been living in a 1970s flat in Forest Hill, which was all clean-lines and cool tones. This cottage was an entirely different proposition. Built in 1837, it technically classifies as Victorian, but it is Georgian in spirit, with charming proportions and plenty of period details. ‘Everything had a grandeur, but on a tiny scale,’ explains Harriet. ‘We were open to living anywhere in London, but my family are all around Kingston and we fell in love with this place as soon as we saw it.’ Although it appears modest from the front, it goes back a long way, and an elegant, light-filled conservatory, added to the rear by the previous owner and once used a painting studio thanks to its northerly aspect, was the cherry on the top.
Other than a bathroom that was calling for an overhaul, the house was in good knick and felt well-loved. The couple decided to keep the perfectly functional galley kitchen – handbuilt by the previous artist owner – and instead just zhoosh it up, installing white tiles (inspired by Italian and French pantry-style kitchens), adding a reclaimed wooden floor from Lawsons and tweaking the existing units to accommodate an all-important dishwasher. Of course, what Harriet was most excited to change was the palette. ‘I had grand ideas about painting the dining room lime green, but the house said so much in itself and it took me a while to get my head around that and realise what it actually needed,’ Harriet recalls. Her starting point was to paint every room in ‘All White’ by Farrow & Ball. ‘I’m not sure I’d do that again as it resulted in me painting almost every single room twice, but it was helpful to make it into a blank canvas,’ reflects Harriet. ‘I thought I wanted it to be all Kettle’s Yard, but it needed so much more warmth than that.’
It might seem surprising for someone whose job is advising on colour, but in her own home Harriet is particularly fond of neutrals. ‘I love original Farrow & Ball neutrals, because they feel inherently historic, with their green tinted, creamy tones echoing the mineral paints of the past,’ she explains. ‘Off White No.3’ and ‘Lime White No.1’, which she used in the hallway, her bedroom and for a fireplace surround in the sitting room, are among her firm favourites. ‘They just work in this cottage, because they feel like they have always been there,’ Harriet adds. Stronger colour comes in splashes through objects, painted woodwork and textiles. ‘I like a room being able to hold quite a lot of colour in objects, rather than necessarily on the walls,’ she explains. It is an approach made clear the moment you step into the house, where walls in Farrow & Ball’s ‘Off White’ are paired with a red and white striped door curtain (and luminous pink silk on the other side) and a cupboard Harriet painted in ‘Selvedge’, also by Farrow & Ball. ‘I love a gloss or eggshell on a piece of furniture, because it gives it a luminescence,’ Harriet explains. The conservatory also makes clear her approach, where white walls are offset by a rhubarb toned ‘Teepee Sofa’ by Lucy Kurrein, picked up for a fraction of the original price on eBay, and a table painted in Farrow & Ball’s ‘Parma Gray’.
The slow evolution of this house’s decoration has been an integral part of Harriet’s journey to becoming a colour consultant. She closed her floristry business in autumn 2020 and honed her eye by painting the cottage, before she started working in Farrow & Ball’s Richmond store, giving three to four consultancies every hour. ‘I started getting asked by friends, then friends of friends, then people I didn’t know, and I made the decision when I was pregnant with our son Cecil in 2022 that I should probably go into it properly.’ She is quick to stress that while her own taste sees her mix neutral backdrops with pops of colour, it isn’t a style she imposes on her clients. ‘I meet clients where they’re at with colour and want to offer something that’s accessible and can get clients going,’ explains Harriet.
There are some exceptions to her predilection for neutrals, including her son’s bedroom, which is colour drenched in ‘Celestial Blue’ by Little Greene. ‘I can see why people hire someone like me, because I found it quite challenging to narrow down paint options, but it’s created a really lovely cocooning room in the end,’ explains Harriet, with a laugh. ‘What I love about this one is that it’s neither duck egg nor a cold blue.’ Blue is one of her favourite colours, hence why she painted the stairs in a pot of Farrow & Ball’s ‘Parma Gray’ that she happened to have knocking around. ‘I loved it immediately and it somehow neutralises the pine floorboards throughout, which are quite orange,’ she explains. ‘One of the things I’ve learnt is that done is better than perfect,’ reasons Harriet, who has single-handedly painted every room and bit of painted furniture in the house.
One of her favourite ways to introduce colour, though, is through textiles, which she admits are her nemesis. ‘Much to Ben’s despair, I hoard textiles, especially antiques ones,’ she says. ‘Colour looks the most exciting on fabric, because it’s not flat. In the sitting room, it comes in through two pairs of bookshelf curtains, made up from a pretty handloomed stripe sourced from The Cloth House that is neither blue nor turquoise. ‘I found the rainbow spines of books sometimes a bit visually noisy and loved the idea of creating Japanese-inspired door curtains,’ she adds. In the conservatory, the pair of cushions on the brown armchairs were made up from an antique beach windbreaker. ‘I love that kind of thing – where something can have another purpose,’ explains Harriet. But it’s up in the bedroom, where textiles really come to the fore, where Harriet has created a theatrical blind-cum-bed canopy from Foy & Co's ‘Lynmouth Grey Herringbone Stripe Fabric’. ‘It needed a huge metreage and I managed to buy this for £10 a metre, which made it all possible,’ she explains. Paired with pink washed linen from The Conran Shop, this room both feels energising and relaxing.
Just as inspiring as her thoughtful use of colour are her clever budget friendly hacks. A dab hand with a paint brush and a sewing machine, Harriet has made pretty much everything – from the blind-cum-bed canopy, to the slip covers for a pair of armchairs in the sitting room that were made from a Warris and Vianni fabric, bought from a sale when their Notting Hill shop closed down. Almost every piece of furniture is sourced from markets, eBay or Facebook Marketplace, including the dining table that came from a family who had eaten family meals around it for the best part of 60 years to the Ikea Swedish-style blind in the dining room that cost just £5 from Facebook marketplace. Even the bathroom is the product of Facebook Marketplace haggling, with the loo and seat both found on there, as well as the taps and the pretty edging tiles, which Harriet paired with inexpensive plain white tiles, found at an outlet. Curtains were often hung using extendable antique brass curtain rods from Dunelm, which look the part but cost a fraction of what they could.
As you read this, Harriet and Ben are packing up their cottage and moving to pastures new in nearby Ham. It’s bittersweet – not only is this the place they started their family, but it also proved a hugely formative place for Harriet and launched her career as a colour consultant. No doubt she’ll be learning many more lessons about colour from her next home.
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Peter Molloy2/21Looking back through the dining room into the kitchen
Peter Molloy3/21The entire kitchen, including the cabinets, walls and ceiling, are painted in ‘Sand I’ by Paint & Paper Library, while the wall tiles are ‘Artworks Field Tiles’ by Original Style in vintage white. A painting by Luke Hannam bought through McCully & Crane in Rye hangs over the cooker.
Peter Molloy4/21The cabinets here are painted in ‘Masai’ with backs in ‘Rhubarb’, both by Paint and Paper Library, and feature some wood fired salt glaze pots by Tim Hurn that the couple received as wedding presents. The cabinet curtains are in Cloth House's Washed Linen in natural, and a Hungarian rug from Maud Lomberg at Kempton is on the floor. The pendant light is IKEA's Risbyn design.
Peter Molloy5/21In the conservatory, a ‘Teepee’ sofa by Lucy Kurrein, bought from SCP and upholstered in Romo's ‘Linara’ in rhubarb (found on Ebay) faces a pair of armchairs from Kempton in their original brown velvet. The green cushions are in a silk dupion from Linum Outlet.
At the far end of the room, a Russell Woodard spun fibreglass table from Franklin's Interiors at Sandown is surrounded by antique French bistro chairs from Will & Yates in Deal. Harriet painted the chairs in ‘Parma Gray’ by Farrow & Ball to match the table.
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Peter Molloy9/21In the bathroom, the walls are painted in ‘China Clay - Dark’ by Little Greene, against which a blue table found at Ardingly provides a pop of colour. The Burlington loo and mahogany seat were bought new from Facebook Marketplace. The shower curtain came from a Balineum sample sale.
Peter Molloy10/21Pooky's ‘Mini Elbow’ wall lights are fixed on either side of the mirror with parchment shades from Jim Lawrence.
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Peter Molloy12/21An old book cabinet from Kempton is lined with Chambray Cotton Stripe in duck egg from Fabrics Galore.
Peter Molloy14/21In the bedroom, Harriet has created a blind-cum-canopy for the bed out of a striped fabric from Foy & Co, against which pink bedding in a washed linen from The Conran Shop and cushions in an emerald antique silk from Warris Vianni create a bright contrast. The bedside tables are from Wimbledon Antiques, while the lamps on them are from OKA and painted in ‘Powder Blue’ from Farrow & Ball. The walls are again in ‘Lime White’.
Peter Molloy15/21Harriet found the wardrobe at Kempton and painted it in ’Treron’ by Farrow & Ball. The curtain is in the same fabric as the bed awning above.
Peter Molloy16/21Harriet's son's room is painted in ‘Celestial Blue’ by Little Greene. A 1920s textile hangs above the cot, made, according to a dealer at Ardingly, from fragments of textiles found in ancient Egyptian tombs. Harriet used a heavyweight linen from The Cloth Shop for the blind. The quilt on Cecil’s cot is by Georgia Dorey of Into the Fold and features his favourite animals.
Peter Molloy17/21Harriet's mum, the artist Sue Slaughter, painted the blue dog on the mantelpiece for her son's second birthday. Called ‘Bobo', the picture is part of a series she is making for an upcoming group exhibition called ‘Beasties’ showing in this Autumn with Kingston Artists’ Open Studios.
Peter Molloy18/21Harriet in the conservatory.
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