Bill and Hayley Kingston bought their atmospheric house in Kent in 2017. Originally an Arts and Crafts schoolhouse built in 1902, it was in a poor state of repair. Divided into two residential properties during the 1970s, its interior bore little resemblance to any original layout. But Hayley had a clear idea of how it could look and hired architects to help realise her vision.
“It had an odd identity and didn’t seem to know what it was, but the fact that it wasn’t a standard semi-detached house appealed,” she recalls. Hayley was creative director of Den Creative, the digital agency she and her husband founded together before she stepped back to put more time into raising their children after the third was born. It was then that working on the design for the house became her creative outlet. Nowadays the family comprises Etienne (10), Sylvie (8) and Astrid (3), plus Dusty the dog and Mittens the cat.
