interviews
Interview with Home&Antiques
When antiques dealer Chloe Cyphus separated from her husband, she needed to find a new home for herself and her son Rowdy. A life-long passion for antiques had led her to a career as a dealer and she was running an antiques shop in Warminster, Wiltshire, when a chance conversation brought an old stone nunnery in the heart of the town to her attention.
"The house belonged to one of my customers," Chloe explains. "She was an Army wife and the family were being posted abroad but hadn't sold their home. When she came round with her mother to say goodbye, I mentioned I was house-hunting. Having jumped in her car, three minutes later I was viewing the house. Ten minutes later I bought it!"
A sense of sanctuary
The house is enclosed in a walled garden accessed by a giant gate and Chloe immediately took its air of peaceful security. "The minute I stepped into the entrance hallway I said, I'll have it, even without seeing the rest. I thought we could be really happy here," she says.
The house was well cared for and in good repair, but cosmetically it needed some work. "These were quite a lot of yellow gloss paint and I can't stand things with shine. The whole house was carpeted in reddish tones which were tasteful but not right for me."
She immediately painted all the walls in Farrow & Ball's 'Slipper Satin' and carpeted the room in coir. However: "I soon realised that the 'Slipper Satin' was too grey for some of the rooms so I had to repainted," she says. The resulting colour scheme is a restful mix of greys, blues, whites, sages and pinks, with dashes of stronger tones such as raspberry, to add contrast and interest.
She also revised the bathroom arrangements. "The main bathroom was internal and there wasn't an ensuite off the master bedroom. Both rooms seemed small and, as I can't stand bathrooms with no natural light, I knocked them both into each other to make a bigger room," she explained.
The right fit
The house has turned out to be ideal for her living arrangements. Of the four bedrooms, Chloe uses the two smaller rooms as a workshop and a storage room. The main bedroom is spacious and airy and every morning light floods inn through the double windows.
The kitchen had already been knocked into the hall to make more space on the ground floor and the cloakroom and sitting room were exactly the right size: 'high ceiling but not too vast'.
The second floor is Rowdy's, with plenty of space for his bedroom and games room. "He's 13 now but I realised that when he gets older he's going to want a bit of space to himself, so I've let him take over the whole floor!"
As an antiques dealer Chloe knows a thing or two about beautiful objects and her home is crammed with elegant furniture painted in whites and creams, from Swedish chairs and French chests of drawers, to farmhouse tables. "The furniture has a softness and lightness about it," says Chloe. "It gives an ambience and charm that you don't get with darker pieces. The stone of the building and its high ceilings and good proportions make the right background and everything else just fits together."
The only downside is that due to her job, she can't hang on to pieces for ever. "Like all dealers' homes, things go in and out," she says. "People wonder how you can bear to sell but you have to. When items are bought from the shop, they have to be replaced. There have been a few things I regret selling and I wonder if I'll see anything like them again."
One piece she will keep hold of is the cupboard in her hallway, filled with books and shells. "I have a similar one in the shop," she says. "I don't buy anything for the shop that I wouldn't put in my own house so everything must be soft, calm and pretty. And selling things on means I always have to re-think, change things around and be creative, which is good for any home."
Her love for what she does is reflected in her disbelief at those who will buy 'a chipboard wardrobe' for £1500. "You can spend less than that on an antique which will last you all your life," she says.