Heart and soul (From Living Northeast)

Heart and soul

11:52am Monday 22nd June 2009 in

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It needed a lot of love and attention, but their revamped family home has brought the Murray family much happiness, says Jenny Laue.

‘A HOUSE is not a home without a heart’ is Kerrie Murray’s favourite saying. And she lives by it – literally. Step through the front door of her house in Eaglescliffe, and they’re there – hearts, that is – hanging in the window and stacked prettily in one corner of the hall.

But if you’re thinking, that sounds a bit twee, think again. Hearts may be Kerrie’s trademark design for her home accessories business, Pins and Ribbons, but these are far from kitsch. They’re contemporary and stylish, giving the three-bedroomed mid-terrace a playful warmth that’s friendly and inviting.

As with all houses, the Murray family home took a long time to come together. Kerrie and David moved in in August 1998 and it’s taken them more than ten years to make it what it is today.

“I’m originally from this area – actually, from two streets along – and my husband is from Durham. We were looking to move back here when this lovely house came up,” says Kerrie. “Even though we had to stretch ourselves financially, we put an offer in, which, luckily for us, was accepted. I think we moved in within six weeks of putting in the offer.”

The house was in great need of a big dose of tlc when the Murrays arrived. It was rather traditional and oldfashioned in decor and not at all suitable for a growing family.

“It was awful,” remembers Kerrie with a shudder.

“They had taken out every original feature the house had ever had. Downstairs was all open-plan, yet the kitchen was tiny. It needed a great deal of attention.”

It wasn’t just the inside that needed an overhaul: the sizeable garden was dreadfully overgrown. There was so much undergrowth that once they’d cleared it away, they discovered the garden pond was twice as big as they’d originally thought.

“We are lucky that we have a lot of support from our families. My brother is a roofer and he’s done a lot of work for us. My dad has done a lot of DIY and David’s family have always done things themselves. Together they’ve helped us put in walls, for instance,” says Kerrie.

The garden room – the family’s favourite room – is a masterpiece of DIY designed by David. By the time they started the extension to the kitchen, Grace, their oldest daughter, had arrived and it made sense to have a room in the house that was light and airy and could be used as an everyday room, so the actual front room could be kept nice and more formal for visitors. It’s the garden room where the family can relax, where the kids Grace, now eight, and Eve, do their homework, then watch TV with their parents and two rescue dogs, Jasper and Eddie, an ex-police sniffer dog.

“My dad knew this amazing builder from Yarm who came and built our extension just before he retired. He was 75 years old and knew his trade inside out. The garden room extension is a work of art, I think, in terms of the brickwork.

“I remember we laboured for him. We had to get the bricks from the front of the house to the back and we used Grace’s pram to carry them.”

Once the extension was finished, the Murrays could set about transforming the kitchen into a practical family space. They asked a local carpenter to make their bespoke kitchen units from reclaimed timber, topped with hard-wearing black granite. They exude a rustic charm and an air of durability. There is an Aga, surrounded by an old mantlepiece, and a beautiful deep Belfast sink, another salvage piece. The big skylights, tiled floor and chunky dining table pull the whole cottage kitchen look together.

The rest of the house is equally charming and appealing. The love and effort that have gone into returning it to its former glory is tangible in every room.

Kerrie’s flair for interior design shines through.

The front room is furnished with two big comfortable sofas, a few antique-looking pieces, fairy lights and a huge gilt mirror above the impressive fireplace. The colour scheme above and below the picture rail complements the vivid green glazed tiles on either side of the hearth.

Upstairs, in the bedrooms, there are more salvage pieces that Kerrie and David have found in auctions and lovingly restored. The bathroom, for instance, has an old roll-top bath in it which was rusting away in Kerrie’s dad’s garden before she dug it out and gave it a new lease of life.

“It’s so nice to know that you’ve rescued odd pieces that have a bit of history. It’s like a rescue dog: they have a bit of character and with a bit of love, they give so much back,” she says.

“The bath tub was in my dad’s garden for about six years. It was completely trashed because he kept old bricks in it. But we had it shot-blasted and re-enamelled and now it looks new again.”

The girls’ bedrooms are unashamedly pink. They could have come straight off the pages of a ideal home magazine, but real children live here. Among the flowery wallpaper, butterfly stencils and gingham bedcovers, there are scribbles in pen on one wall, dog-eared books in the bookcases and homework on the desks.

And that’s what makes the Murray home so inviting, this mixture of the classy – the Fired Earth tiles, Farrow & Ball paint and Laura Ashley fabrics – and the homely – Kerrie’s hearts, the home-made bunting, the quirky knick-knacks and the big laundry bag hanging off the bed frame. It doesn’t just give the house a heart, but also a soul.