Paula Sutton Of Hill House Vintage On Country House Style & Secondhand Shopping

Having once lived it large in the busy London whirlwinds of fashion PR and media, Paula Sutton needed to escape. Uprooting her life to Norfolk, she and her family settled down in the bucolic Hill House – and so the eponymous blogging brand was born. Now Instagram famous for her country house interiors, and outlandish dress (think digging up weeds in a ballgown), the Hill House Vintage name has become a by-word for eclectic, traditional aesthetics with a rough and ready edge. Following on from her latest collaboration with sofa.com, with caught up with Paula to learn all about her design process and why she keeps falling for country house interiors over and over again.

Q&A With Paula Sutton Of Hill House Vintage

Hi Paula, how are you? Last time I saw you your foot was in a cast. 

I am still in that cast; it is so frustrating. But the good news is I’m no longer in a big boot. I’m in what looks like a black sandal that is attached to the end of the cast so I can put a little bit of weight on it. I’m no longer so doddery as if I’m going to fall over any second. The cast comes off next Wednesday, so I’m excited. 

When you first started your Hill House blog did you ever imagine the places it would take you?

Not at all. It was definitely something to keep me going. I’d moved from London, given up my entire career, and had made sure that my children and my husband were sorted in this new life. And then one day, I looked around and thought, ‘Okay, now, what do I do?’. I did a bit of long-distance production but had to keep going down to London for fashion shoots and things which didn’t work. All that time I was looking at these family bloggers. I could see these women creating things and selling things and having ads on their blogs. Apart from just enjoying the company of like-minded people, I realised they’re also making money. I thought, ‘maybe I can do that’. I started a blog writing about my move to the countryside, my vintage finds and how I was going to furnish the house. It was all just a total mismash; I didn’t know what I was doing or where it was going to lead. But as time went on, it grew and grew and grew. 

How did your recent collaboration with sofa.com come about?

Years ago I was gifted a sofa.com chair. I got this big Oscar sofa. It’s got a button back and it’s done up in a very traditional Chesterfield style. It looks like something from Sherlock Holmes’ study. It was just one of those ongoing, beautiful partnerships.

The way they work is they love having distinctive ranges and I think my home has become so distinctive. I’d like to think the range is reassuring Hill House Vintage, even the names: Rhubard, Fudge, the Dashwood Stripe for my dog, the Norfolk spring Bay Leaf print because I’m in Norfolk, and of course the Hill House gingham. I’ve done quite a few collaborations with interiors and clothing brands. I really like to get in there. I’ve got a creative soul that’s been waiting to come out for years. It’s not just picking things from a picture board: I literally go in and I help create these things, because that’s the fun of it, putting your heart and soul into every creative moment. 

Tell me about your design process. How did you bring Hill House alive?

I’ve always been a fan of a really traditional English country house. So I love Colefax and Fowler, and all those really traditional interior designers, but also Ben Pentreath and Carlos Garcia – the people who bring that country house style alive. My bookcases are filled with interiors books from the past and the present. Some of the things that reoccur in those pages and in my house are the ticking stripes, the checks, the ginghams, and of course, the country florals. And then you’ve got the Arts & Crafts inspiration, the William Morris look. But I wanted something a little bit spicier, as well. My floral is a chinoiserie; it shows that people have travelled and studied different cultures.

Why do you think you’re continually drawn to those classic British interiors?

They’re very lived in. They’re not too precious. They can be adapted to look as grand or as modest as you like. You don’t have to live at Chatsworth to enjoy your floral chintz and stripes. They’re very democratic in that way.

I’m a fan of dogs on sofas, so I love a mix of colours and patterns because it’s the most forgiving thing if you’ve got dogs and a house in the country because life gets grubby. You can hide a multitude of sins with beautiful, layered interiors. 

Having parents who were in the Windrush generation who came over from the Caribbean meant it was very much a make do and mend mentality: you have things handed down, you buy secondhand, you mix with new pieces. Our home was very much in the spirit of the English country house, even though they came from the Caribbean. My mother was obsessed with Country Life magazine and the idea of a beautiful country house. We had a very beautiful Edwardian house in South London on the outskirts of Surrey.

You have such a beautiful home. Have you made any changes to it recently or do you have any projects in the works?

It’s not always picture-perfect! With a house, you’re never completely done. We’ve been here for 16 years and there are still things I want to do. I want to have a beautiful greenhouse in the garden. At the moment I’ve got my lovely kitchen garden which used to be where the trampoline was. It was a really horrible eyesore for many years. I used to watch it and think: ‘One day when the kids get bored of jumping around on that, that’s going to turn into my kitchen garden.’ 

I also built my garden office with the help of a family friend who’s around 78. Originally he was going to come and build it with a team of people but because of the lockdown I ended up building it from scratch under his guidance. We also built an extension to my bathroom inspired by the many wonderful hotels I’ve visited over the last few years. I’ve got these fabulous, gigantic, gilt, Louis XV inspired mirrors which are very over the top. It makes you feel like you’re in a fairytale.

I tend to be a slow decorator, because when I settle on something I love I might keep it for years. I’m not one of those Instagrammers who changes something every two minutes. I don’t follow fads. I know people really love the country house style right now but I’ve loved that for decades. My kitchen is actually quite small compared to the house so in an ideal world I’d love to extend that but I don’t know if it will ever happen. It’s always been my dream to have one of those Downton Abbey kitchens, but my house is an eighth of the size of Downton Abbey.

You came under fire in 2020 when a journalist on Twitter said your picture-perfect life put her off Instagram. How do you think we can all engage with social media in healthier ways? 

What was interesting about that particular moment in time is that my mother had just died of leukaemia and then when we were plunged straight into lockdown after I came back from her funeral. I could either completely wallow in misery or try and find the joy. It was the moment when I became a lot bolder in my photographs and I started showing my face off. I was showing myself grinning and tap dancing and laughing and having picnics in my garden, but it was an antidote to feeling so glum inside. I was using my social media as escapism and I was hoping that was what people would draw from it. I think if there’s a lesson to be learned, it’s that you never know what’s going on in someone’s life. And if something’s going to irritate you, then you need to swipe away or put down the phone. 

Are you glad that since you started Hill House vintage, more people are shopping secondhand? 

Absolutely, it’s a wonderful thing. The only thing that’s a slight negative: it’s driven up the price. Because once something’s in fashion you get people who take advantage of that situation. The beauty of it is that it’s sustainable. But it also means that if somebody’s only just got their first flat or are still living with their parents, there are still looks and interior styles they can emulate by going into a secondhand shop. Which is lovely because I don’t believe in gatekeeping. Everyone should have access to a beautiful interior or beautiful outfit.

I’m not anti-buying new things by any means, but I do believe that the most beautiful and individual way that you can furnish your house or dress your body is by having a mix of things. It creates something that isn’t off the peg and isn’t new. 

When you first moved to Hill House you started buying secondhand out of financial necessity. Is that the first time you dabbled in vintage shopping? 

I did have some. There’s a Victorian style Chesterfield chair that was my gift to myself during my first maternity leave and it was my breastfeeding chair. I had it covered in a beautiful Ian Mankin check, but when I first saw it it was a mess: it had horse hair sticking through the cloth and springs coming out. I also had a beautiful French factory table which was our dining table in London. And I’ve always collected vintage artwork, and I have the vintage chessboard that I stole from my parents. But when we came to Hill House we had more rooms and larger spaces. I had to go into overdrive, and we going to many more vintage shops and markets.

When you were younger, you originally wanted to be an interior designer before you fell into fashion. How would your younger self feel to know you are now doing both?

Oh, I would be amazed. I wanted to be an interior designer when I was about 16 or 17 because my mother used to have these interiors magazines and I really wanted to go into that world. Even though my mother loved the whole aesthetic, my parents didn’t really understand the career of an interior designer. They said ‘Just furnish your house when you get a house and that should satisfy you.’ I went on to do town planning with architecture at uni and when I left I did work experience for different fashion PR companies. I loved the creativity of the fashion world but I was very much the nuts and bolts person putting things together. So it was amazing to go into Instagram and blogging and social media and be the person who was allowed to choose the aesthetic. Because I spent most of my career being the person who sat back and thought ‘I wouldn’t have done that’ or ‘I would have chosen this’.

Juggling so many different aspects of your career, what are you doing these days to live a balanced life? 

That’s a really interesting question because up until not that long ago, it wasn’t as balanced as I would have liked. I don’t do New Year’s resolutions, but I tend to have a word of the year. The year after my mother died, my word of the year was ‘yes’. You wouldn’t believe it now because I’m gallivanting around on my social media all there time but there was a time when I was quite shy and was hiding from the world. So then when I decided to say ‘yes’ I started to doing all these things and becoming braver and more confident. And that has brought me to the career I have today. But as your career grows, you’re taken further and further away from home more and more often. I would never wish a torn achilles tendon on anyone but I can say that one good side to my pulled tendon is it has made me sit back and fall in love with my house all over again. Having had years of saying ‘yes, yes, yes’, I’m now readressing that and think ‘let’s calm down’. 

Discover Paula’s latest collection at sofa.com