A uniquely colourful family home in Yorkshire owned by two creatives

Simon and Nicola Hutchinson’s house looks pretty much how you might imagine, provided you know that he’s a colour maker and historical colour consultant at Little Greene, and she’s the artist and illustrator behind Hutch Cassidy, one of the most charming brands operating in the UK today. In other words: it’s about as uniquely colourful and whimsically decorated as any family home you might care to find, filled – but not overfilled – with objets d’art, antique furniture and patterns and textures that speak to two careers spent honing the eye.

An Edwardian house in Helmsley, Yorkshire, when the house came on the market, Simon and Nicola leaped at the opportunity. Having moved to London together after university “on a bit of a whim”, says Simon, they spent a decade living in Islington until the birth of their first son, Wilf, led them to look for somewhere with more space. “We weren't able to use London for all the advantages London has,” Simon explains. “Going for a drink after work, going out for dinner.” After considering, then dismissing, the idea of moving to the suburbs, they took the leap and – both having roots in the North – quit their jobs to head back to Simon’s hometown. “We took a massive risk,” recalls Nicola. “We jacked everything in and just went for it. It worked out alright, in the end, but it was scary.” Following a spell living in Simon’s grandfather’s house, the couple were given a huge opportunity: the house Simon’s parents had lived in became available. Naturally, they seized it with both hands, and moved in.

“We did it up entirely from what it was like when [Simon’s] parents lived here,” says Nicola, “to make it feel more like our home; to put our stamp on it. It was a big project, to change it and give it a new feel.” Naturally, she and Simon wanted to shape the space to suit their young family, but as the scale of the Covid-19 pandemic gradually became apparent, the duo decided to try to get as much of the renovation work done themselves as they could. There wasn’t any structural rearranging of rooms that they wanted to do, after all. “I really didn't want to rip plaster off walls, rip skirting boards off – that was the last thing I wanted to do,” says Simon. “I wanted to make good what was here and just smarten it up a bit, because I love the fact it's an old house. It has wonky bits. The soul of this house is within those imperfections.” And how hard could it be, really?

Quite hard, it soon turned out. They started off by setting up the Nicola’s studio at the top of the house, in the attic, so she could begin working and running Hutch Cassidy. They got their sons’ room into shape so they would be comfortable. And they decided to strip the lining paper off the living room and make it newly liveable, reasoning that once they had a comfortable, fresh space in the house for the family to spend time in, then they could keep working on the rest of it later.

“I underestimated the amount of time it was going to take to do that living room,” says Simon. “I thought I'd have it done, stripped, re-skimmed and repainted in a few weeks. I think it took a week to get the lining paper off.” As he stripped the old emulsion paint off the walls, then pulled down the lining paper, he uncovered a layer of oil eggshell, and more lining paper, and eventually the house’s original distemper – a century’s worth of wall treatments. Luckily, though, there was a silver lining behind all the work: as a specialist paint historian, Simon was uncovering layer upon layer of colour history within his own home. “I was uncovering all these original colours that the house was first painted in. We're talking 1920s original distempers, and it was absolutely incredible to see that.” There was “a really lovely blue” on the stairs, and a bright red on the woodwork that Simon and Nicola think must have dated to the 1960s or 70s. At every point, the house offered up new revelations.

Elsewhere, it refused to behave. “As with a lot of projects,” says Simon, “every time we did something, something generally went wrong. I had a ceiling fall in on me. I was taking woodchip off the ceiling and realized the woodchip was holding the ceiling up. It came down on my head. That hurt.” “It was really, really stressful,” adds Nicola. “Really hard.”

Once the stripping-back process was complete, though, the couple were well and truly in their element: redecorating and choosing colours. “We've always liked our house to look like our home,” explains Simon. “To be ours. Even in our rental in Islington, we painted it our own colours – we were allowed to – because we wanted it to feel like our home.” With a lot of “likes and dislikes” in common, the couple worked together to devise a colour scheme for the house. “We had a really good strategy for it. Nicola would almost say, ‘I think this room should be this kind of colour. I think this would look really good in this,’ and I was like, ‘Yeah, okay.’ And I would either find the colour or make the colour.” A custom pink used in the bathroom was typical of the process – a vision of Nicola’s, and which Simon mixed together after some initial reluctance, before coming round to the idea. “I was like, ‘It's just in my head,’” says Nicola, “‘You just have to get the colour out of my head.’” Elsewhere, a blue in the kitchen – used in contrast with a bold orange – was a nod to Simon and Nicola’s Islington flat, where they painted the old “awful” kitchen a similar colour.

That London flat, says Nicola, was “almost like a little antique shop” by the time they moved out, and so having more space in the new house in Helmsley let her and Simon display the various treasures they’d found in antiques shops, car boot sales and auction houses – including Criterion, a stone’s throw from them in Islington – over the years. Indian furniture and classic brown antiques combined with bright colours to make for visually engaging interiors, as did objects inherited from Simon’s grandmother, who Nicola describes as “a massive collector”. One such example hangs on the dining room wall: a horse blanket that had, until then, spent years folded on Simon’s bedroom floor.

It’s a unique house as a result, and one that reflects the distinct character of the two people who have shaped it. “I think we’ve never changed things based on outside influences,” says Simon. “We’ve never been influenced by trends or what’s going on. This is our house. This is what we’re doing. Our ethos on it is: we’ve always just done what we feel is right.”