Annoushka Ducas’s Georgian Sussex home is full of treasures and effortless style
With pieces collected over many years, family heirlooms, and eclectic finds, the jewellery designer’s home is a real reflection of her style.
Jewellery designer and founder of Annoushka Jewellery, Annoushka Ducas has lived in this Georgian Sussex home for 27 years, but she says it was love at first sight.
“I do feel houses are kind of meant to be,” she says, “and we literally walked in the front door and I said to my husband, ‘I just know it’s our house’. I knew in every part of me that it was the right house. Having gone as far as the kitchen and talking to the lady that owns it, I found myself doing the washing up. It just felt like home.”
From this immediate connection, Annoushka says it has been an incredibly happy home. Over the years she has put her stamp on it. Her mother died when she was 23, and so she inherited a huge amount of art and furniture.
“It’s quite eclectic,” she explains, “there’s Russian art, furniture that my mother collected over the years. At first, we could afford to do absolutely nothing with the house, so it just had to evolve. I’m a real believer in not doing up a house as soon as you get into it. I like to live in a house before you understand how it works – where the sun is, how you live in it. So it’s evolved over a long time and it’s still evolving now.”
The first place they changed was the garden, aware that plants take time to mature and settle to give the full effect of any transformation. The walled garden that now houses the pool was previously a vegetable garden. “We’re really reaping the benefits now.”
The size of the house means that it is incredibly versatile, with different spaces to suit different occasions. It also allows its owners to play with different aesthetics. For example, the formal dining room, replete with rich purple chairs and many mirrors, is the perfect evening entertaining space.
However, Annoushka explains, it’s not ideal for the daytime, which is why they have a second dining space. “It looks out onto the garden and is really light. It’s very much a lunch time, summer room.”
One of her favourite spaces in the house is a wood-panelled snug, where a painting of her four children hangs. “It’s really cosy and has a lovely fire. We use that all the time in the winter.”
