Red Magazine: July 2009

WORLD OF INTERIORS

You don't need a long-haul flight to feel far away. These four women brought their travels back with them and created another country at home.

A SLICE OF SRI LANKA IN NORFOLK

Not wanting the grey light of a Norfolk barn, Debbie Gray, 34, and her partner, James, have lit it up with fabrics from Sri Lanka and India.

'It's colourful and fun,' says Debbie, of the barn conversion she has created with partner James, two miles from the beach in Norfolk. 'It has the tranquility you find in Sri Lanka, and the vibrancy you get in India.' When Debbie met James two years ago, he had already converted the barn into a nine-bedroom house with stone floors, minstrels' gallery and oak-beamed morning room - and shipped in four-poster beds from Rajasthan. But Debbie thought the barn, set in five acres of landscaped gardens, needed 'dressing a bit more'. So they embarked on a two-month global shopping trip in search of fabrics. What they brought back was colour: 'big bold stripes of clashing pinks, yellow and orange' from Sri Lanka; a blue traditional-style wall hanging from Hampi; giant patchwork bedspreads from Varanasi; finely woven Kashmiri rugs from Manali in the Himalayas. The Sri Lanken fabrics were used to cover custom-made sofas and, having given each of the nine bedrooms a colour (and matching doorknob), the couple also sourced fabrics and accessories to embellish them: a Rajasthani wall-hanging in rich oranges for the 'amber' room, a mirror-embroidery bedspread for the 'green' room, and a blue-and-mauve wildflower-print bedcover in the 'blue' room. 'The further north in India you go, the more earthy the colours become,' says Debbie. 'Varanasi is the biggest sensory overload I've ever experienced. The foothills of the Himalayas offer a cool escape. And Sri Lanka is more laid-back.' And a bit of all is now in Norfolk.

Chaucer Barn sleeps up to 18 and costs from £2,399 for a three-night weekend (0845 034 0700; mrandmrssmith.com)