REAL HOME

P r o f ile

The owners Gemma Gear, a TV design producer and interior stylist (@thatssogemma; thatssogemma.com), her partner Tom, an accountant, and their cocker spaniel, Digby The property A two-bedroom late Victorian terrace in Worthing, West Sussex emma and Tom weren’t planning on

gleaving their rented flat, but when their landlord gave them two months’ notice, they weren’t left with much choice. ‘We took it as a sign to buy our own place and moved in with Tom’s parents while we scoured the market,’ says Gemma. ‘This Victorian terrace was about the 20th property we looked at, and was down the road from our old flat.’ It hadn’t been touched since the 1970s, with laminate flooring downstairs,

Artex ceilings and magnolia walls. But the couple loved the original wooden doors, wooden flooring upstairs and the two fireplaces. ‘All it needed was some TLC, an injection of colour – and a kitchen and bathroom revamp!’ she adds. The couple got the keys in the summer of 2019 but didn’t move in until the October. During that time, they got to work sanding floorboards, plastering ceilings and fitting new skirtings and architraves. The bathroom was in a particularly sorry state. ‘It was an old avocado suite with no storage space and the bath was cracked down the side,’ says Gemma. ‘We gutted it and rejigged the layout to fit a big vanity cabinet.’

The last job before moving in was painting the whole house white. ‘I wanted a blank canvas to try out different looks.’ Gemma’s approach for choosing colours is to ‘just go for it!’ she says. ‘Sometimes I start with a piece of furniture, like the cobalt blue sofa in our living room, and work from there using the colour wheel. I chose a contrasting yellow for the lamp and rug, and those pieces prompted the entire palette.

Then I tried clashing different colours for everything else until I settled on this design. I love the joy colour brings. It lifts your mood and you can’t help but feel happy in the space.’ In her home office, stylist Gemma wanted it to be lowkey and neutral, ‘so when I’m working on a project, I’m not influenced by my personal taste.’ She has, however, added plenty of houseplants. ‘As well as bringing life to the space,

I love their calming and air-purifying properties.’ Art is key to Gemma and Tom’s home, from the gallery wall in the dining room to standalone pieces. ‘Art can inspire the look for an entire room – the Andy Warhol print in the dining room certainly did. We lifted pinks and oranges from it, and chose furniture with those colours in mind.’ The couple were hands-on with their home, doing all the sanding and painting themselves when they first moved in to keep costs down. However, having the house to work on during lockdown was a lifesaver. ‘I channelled all my energy into my blog, as my line of work basically shut down for five months over the summer,’ says Gemma. ‘When it was all getting serious, we ordered fence panels, AstroTurf, masonry paint, festoon lights – everything we might need to transform the garden. We spent the first two months in the sun every day making it into a really lovely space.’ The previous kitchen was ‘naff but liveable’, in Gemma’s words, so they prioritised the bathroom and waited until they had the money to do it up. ‘It’s amazing how renovating just one room can take over the whole rest of the house!’ says Gemma. ‘While we redid the kitchen, we were living off microwave meals and leftovers from our parents.’ They worked with Benchmarx, who offer a complete design service.

‘They thought of things we wouldn’t have dreamed of until it was all in and it was too late. The bright orange tap is a focal point and it inspired the palette for the whole room. I paired the orange with aqua for a scheme that feels fresh and fun.’ Now Gemma and Tom have finished the house (apart from the downstairs loo), she is excited for a new project.

‘Doing up my own place has given me so much freedom to fully explore my style.’