Words Lily Le Brun
Photography Dan Glasser

As dappled light spills through the first-floor living room that also doubles as a studio, it’s hard to imagine the sorry state in which Teresa found the late Victorian maisonette. One of a colourful row of houses leading off Colville Square, just beside Portobello Road, it was in a bad way. A couple of decades before Teresa bought it, a fire had gutted the flat, stripping out many of the original features. False ceilings, small doors and unnecessary walls obscured its generous volumes.

At one point, the West London Buddhist Centre had occupied it and built a stage in the large bay window at the front of the property. The garden was accessible only through the basement, and there was only an outdoor loo. But Teresa knew she’d found something special. At the time, she was working as an interior designer for high-end residential and commercial properties. “I knew my way around buildings,” she says. She had a clear vision of what it could be for her and her family.

Finding the flat “felt like a blessing,” she remembers. Recently divorced, she was looking for somewhere that she and her children, then aged between six and 11, could put down roots. “I was looking for space, predominantly. And this place had a garden. I didn't want my children’s quality of life to change dramatically.”

“We kept renting in Holland Park while we did about a year of building work. Before I bought it, the previous owners let me do a search, so I knew that the ceilings were higher, and I knew that I wanted to take out the false ones. I wanted to get an organic sense of light and space to flow into the house, so I opened up the first floor, where the kitchen and living area are, and the room at the back, which is now my study. This floor is just heaven now.

“It was a huge job – at one point, we had building control coming here every single day for two weeks, because the house was wide open on two floors. I rebuilt the back wall, connecting the first floor to the garden, and extended the room downstairs. This is a conservation area, so while I did the layout and designs, the architect Dennis Strojwas worked on the permissions. It was great teamwork. We moved in when the place finally had hot water and heating. I’ve hardly changed anything since. When I did the work, I loved it.”

The interiors have a similar sense of timelessness, guided by Teresa’s calm aesthetic that’s rooted in her love for natural materials and finishes, skilful acts of restoration and her respect for the original bones of the building.

As the Victorian cornicing was lost in the fire, Teresa took a wax cast of the mouldings in the flat upstairs and reinstated it. The floorboards on the first floor remained original, but all the joists had to be replaced. On the ground floor, she laid down oak boards, into which she rubbed a paint that she mixed herself. The kitchen and bathroom surfaces were made from cast concrete that had been mixed with marble dust, as opposed to sand and cement, to give it a fine chalky colour. Some of the kitchen units were made using drawer faces from the original kitchen.

The flat is painted throughout in warm white, which creates the perfect neutral backdrop for the eclectic collection of antique furniture and textiles that Teresa has gradually accumulated over the years. Despite being around the corner from Portobello Road market, she has rarely bought from there. “A lot of the furniture has been given to me; I tend to buy only out of necessity. I did lots of work with the antiques dealer Christopher Howe years ago, and he gave me a lot of what’s here today.”

In the living space, two sofas were removed to make way for the huge scaffolding that supports her work. Instead, there are large cushions made by Teresa from fine antique textiles – including a nun’s wimple – that she purchased from Peta Smyth.

It’s a versatile space that lends itself to entertaining. “I have big dinners here – we just gather around the kitchen, or if it’s a huge amount of people, I have some long plank boards which we run down the middle of the living space, and then everyone sits on the floor on the cushions. It works well,” she says.

One of the hardest things to leave will be her neighbours and the community, with whom she has become deeply involved in over the years. When she goes to the weekly local farmer’s market, which is one of her favourite things about the area, she says, “It’s like going to a cocktail party, you know all the same people, you queue up and everyone chats. And the food is amazing.”

Teresa is currently represented by the Sarah Myerscough Gallery, and she also has a studio in the Indian Himalayas where she spends several months each year. She hand-dyes the fibres for her work in vast iron pots using organic materials such as plum, lichen and sweet chestnuts. But she has always worked from home too, and plans to move out of London to allow her art practice to expand. She has grandchildren on the way – her first is being born on the day we speak – and she feels the need to live somewhere where she can close the door on her work.

“I have felt so rooted here,” she says. “It’s been such a wonderful home for me and my children, and friends love coming here. But for the first time, I feel ready to create somewhere new.”