“I know my design is zany,” admits garden designer Butter Wakefield. “As you get older your confidence grows. There are so many decisions around the house that I wouldn’t have made even five years ago.” The house has been an evolving project since she bought it 35 years ago, constantly being added to and updated. “When I have a little extra money after a job I’ll try to buy myself a piece of art. And I’ve started to slowly redecorate and reimagine rooms with that extra money too.” House & Garden first wrote about the house in 2016, when her newfound independence was beginning to make itself felt in the house. “That’s one benefit of divorce,” she jokes, “you get to make all these decisions alone. It’s very liberating.”

Eight years later, Butter has gone from strength to strength in her garden design business, and the house – beautifully designed with a black and white backbone and injections of grassy green and petal pink – is a manifestation of her brilliant success. As well as several projects around London, she’s about to complete a vast garden in East Sussex, something she calls a “seminal, maybe once in a lifetime, job.”

Butter’s gallery wall has built up over time, and is comprised of living artists, some of whom are friends of Butter. The collection of porcelain figurines on the side table is brought together by an antique Staffordshire dog lamp base.

Simon Brown

With her latest wave of tweaks and redesigns, Butter wanted to ensure that the house worked just as well for her and her dog Wafer when they are there alone as it would for her family (four grown-up children and their own offspring) when they are home. The layout, in fact, already facilitates this: like an opening and closing flower, the house is comforting for Butter’s solo life and work, but equally fit for entertaining and hosting. It helps that there is a distinct living room on the first floor, while the kitchen and conservatory are on the ground floor. “The house is very seasonal, so I’ll move with it,” she explains. “In the winter months, I love shutting myself in by the real log fire in one end of the sitting room. But in the summer I’ll migrate into the conservatory and kitchen, which are west-facing, and bathed in beautiful afternoon light. In those months you’ll always find me there with the doors open and the sunshine flooding in through the shade of the big magnolia in the garden.”

Butter has a patient approach to design and an affinity for slow decorating which is evident in the wonderfully layered interiors. She is constantly adding to her art collection, and clever gallery walls mean she can add and shift pieces as desired. Reupholstering also helps her regularly revamp. The armchairs in the back sitting room have been the subject of a recent tweak, and are now covered in a joyful combination of turquoise velvet and a floral print from Manuel Canovas. “It’s all the found objects that make a house a home,” she says. “Every room tells a little story or two, so having more time to collect and scavenge is never going to be a bad thing. The house is never truly ‘done’.” She’s also a firm believer that beautiful things come to those who wait; having only just got around to redecorating the family bathroom, she appreciates its transformation into an art-filled and feminine space even more.