Homes: a vintage Yorkshire home

Olivia Brown’s terrace house in Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire, is a home of quirky contrasts. It mixes rich colour and neutrals, vintage furniture with designer paint and wallpaper, and is filled with flea market finds, the dustier and scruffier the better. Brown, a sculptor, spends most of her spare time rummaging through car boot sales and antiques fairs. As a result, home renovation is an organic process, coming together as and when objects are bought. Photograph: Rachael Smith

In the study, the walls, plastered and wood-panelled, are painted in Olive and Bone, both by Farrow & Ball, and the floorboards are stained white. Brown painted the stork canvas herself. Photograph: Rachael Smith

For similar leather furniture, try twocolumbiaroad.co.uk; the Bureaux sign on the door is from eBay. Photograph: Rachael Smith

Painted a gothic grey (Railings by Farrow & Ball), with one wall papered in Wisteria by Cole & Son, the living room is filled with battered leather furniture and vintage lampshades, objects and frames. Photograph: Rachael Smith

A scruffy otter in a top hat, sitting on the piano, was a sympathy buy as he was so badly taxidermied, says Brown: “I kept seeing him pop up at antiques fairs, and though my husband hated him, by the third sighting I had to have him.” Find vintage creatures at London Taxidermy. Photograph: Rachael Smith

Rose & Grey has a wide selection of vintage leather furniture, and for a similar lampshade, try BeauVamp at Not On The High Street. For a similar shaggy sheepskin cushion (on the armchair), try Debenhams’ Mongolian sheep wool cushion. Photograph: Rachael Smith

The house is painted in a range of rich Farrow & Ball shades, including this plum colour, "Brinjal", in the hallway. “I need colour on my walls,” Brown says, Photograph: Rachael Smith

The bedroom is a girly boudoir filled with shoes, antique dressers and trunks, and ornate furniture (Brown's husband, Andrew doesn’t mind as he has his own gentleman’s dressing room). The walls are painted Hay by Farrow & Ball, with one wall lined in Cole & Son’s Flamingo wallpaper. Photograph: Rachael Smith

Brown stores her shoes in an antique, glass-fronted cabinet (try sellingantiques.co.uk). For mannequins, head to vintagestylemannequins.co.uk; Graham & Green sells gilt mirrors; and for vintage suitcases, try scaramangashop.co.uk.
Photograph: Rachael Smith

Brown and her husband, Andrew. Photograph: Rachael Smith