A handsome Georgian rectory in Hampshire with contemporary country interiors by Tamsyn Mason

“I'm lucky – I get to work in beautiful houses, but this one is particularly lovely,” says interior Tamsyn Mason of this Georgian rectory on the Hampshire-Wiltshire border. Grade-II-listed and adjoining the village's church, it has a handsome symmetrical façade, though Tamsyn describes it as “not grand – it has a family feel with a few more elegant rooms at the front.” Originally called in to give the place a simple decorative refresh for the new owners, a family with three children and four dogs, Tamsyn found that it was a larger undertaking than she had originally thought.

A variety of previous owners had tinkered with the house, adding modern extensions but neglecting the fundamental elements such as plumbing and electrics. Tamsyn embarked on a full rewire and replumb, alongside important work to “bring the soul back to the house”. This entailed refurbishing beautiful old elm floors rather than replacing them with new boards, as well as committing to the painstaking job of restoring the Venetian window that matches the one in the church. “It took ages,” Tamsyn admits, “but the specialist we called in did it perfectly. There's still that slight wonk to the wood and the shutters, and wobbly glass that shows the passage of time – little things like that make such a difference”.

Tamsyn's respect for the character of a house is deeply ingrained in her work as a designer, and it is perfectly exemplified in this project, even though it could make life more difficult. “We didn’t replaster the walls, so hanging the curtain poles was a nightmare,” she remembers. “You have to hang them to the eye, rather than with a spirit level. The pole hanger truly hated me but it's a job worth doing. Everything is wonky and it still feels like an old house.” It was this respect for English country houses, combined with her contemporary approach to colour and sourcing, that drew the clients to Tamsyn in the first place.

“My client was very design literate and knew what she wanted,” Tamsyn explains, pointing to the yellow hallway that the client was determined to have. Tamsyn has an eye for colour – “colour is something I love, from brights to neutrals and the science behind it” – and knew immediately that ‘Sudbury Yellow’ from Farrow & Ball would be the right choice. “The volume of the hallway is lovely but it’s dark. Using colour against a cooler neutral means it doesn't look too contemporary or too staid.” In the main bedroom, where Tamsyn undertook structural changes to create a larger suite, the client specifically requested the Pierre Frey wallpaper. Tamsyn paired it with curtains in Rose Uniacke's ‘Macaron’ wool, adding a pelmet to allow for full blackout at night. “It's a request I get more and more in my projects.”

The bedroom is in the original part of the house, which is particularly characterful, but in the modern parts of the house, a little more work was required to make the rooms beautiful. While the drawing room with its double aspect and Venetian window can speak for itself, “the extension on the house has different room proportions and less architectural merit,” as Tamsyn puts it, “so we layered more in those spaces to make them special in their own way”. One such example is the spare bedroom, where Tamsyn went all out with a bed canopy in a Penny Morrison fabric and double layered curtains to make it a magical space for guests. She also employed a very clever curtain rail in the dormer windows – a tricky window to dress – to allow as much light in as possible. Rather than a rail across the top, she added poles on hinges so the thick curtains swing open and shut. It's a small, but mightily clever detail.

The wonderful thing about the house for the family is that they've found they really do use all of it. The laundry room was moved upstairs to make way for a muddy boot room (necessary for the owners' four dogs), while a TV room lined with bookshelves in a soft red is the perfect place for the children to curl up in the evening. The drawing room – a room which can feel unloved when no guests are in the house – is well used by the adults. As for the dining room, that gets used as a work space (in addition to the study with its glorious views on the first floor) as well as for entertaining. It's testament to Tamsyn's work that nothing about the house feels precious. As she says, “you could move any bit of furniture around in that house and it would work. Nothing feels contrived but all the individual pieces work together”.