The house in Victoria Drive was way out of our price bracket, but we fell in love with it. Red brick with bay windows and a lovely garden, it was cottagey, and you felt you were in the countryside, not close to London. We put in a low offer, the vendor came down a bit on the price and we scraped the money together to buy it. The house needed work and, slowly, we got through every room until, after six years, we had transformed it.
Luckily, Mel is unbelievable at DIY, because his father was a boat-builder. In our flat, Mel put in dado rails and lighting, built cupboards, and even made an arch. We had a teeny hallway with an arch and a square entrance. I remember saying it would be nice if they matched. He said, “Right, I’m off to B&Q and I shall come back and build you an arch.” And he did! I’ve learnt from Mel that things are not as difficult as you think, and he taught me all sorts of techniques for stripping horrible wood-chip wallpaper. Victoria Drive had masses of the revolting stuff, and stencilling everywhere. In the sitting room, we stripped treacly paint from the woodwork, and under the carpet found a beautiful oak floor, which we sanded. A lady who once worked for Mulberry helped me with the soft furnishings. Back then, I loved the Mulberry look — my sofas were a traditional shape and I had lots of chenille throws. I’ve still got the sofas, but I want to change them: your style evolves, and our new house is modern and uncluttered — I now like square, straight sofas. I look at the old ones now and think, “Oh God, they are too curly!” The pièce de résistance was a big kitchen extension that cost £60,000. Mel designed it and, as it was a very large job, we got builders in. We extended the side of the house by a metre and a half, and added a conservatory. The project took four months in 1998, and at one stage the whole side of the house was open to the elements. It was stressful: it was freezing cold in the house, I was pregnant with Lily and trying to deal with two kids. In the end, we moved in with my parents, who live in Kent. Amber Rose and Charlie (who was two) were at nursery school in Wimbledon, and every day I drove them there from Kent. It was an effort, but it worked because I could check on the project.
The finished kitchen was what I would describe as very Provençal. The units were handmade and painted green, the worktops were black granite, and the floor limestone. It was stunning, and even used for photographic shoots. What had been a tiny, manky kitchen became this modern, beautiful space, and it transformed the flow of the house.
We had two eating areas. As you came into the kitchen at the front of the house there was a farmhouse kitchen table in the bay window; at the other end of the kitchen was another table in the conservatory, which was lovely for dinner parties. It worked well when we had families over and wanted to put kids at one end and adults at the other, but usually we ate in the conservatory.
The garden was on a slope and we put in a double tier of terracing. We had one level of flagstones and stone balustrading, steps down to a second level and then more steps to the garden. The BBC loved it and used it as the set for Garden Party, a programme that ran during Wimbledon fortnight. I was one of the regular pundits. Even though I was having children during that period, I never stopped presenting and doing tennis commentaries.
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We had five bedrooms and two bathrooms at Victoria Drive — one en-suite to our bedroom. The master bedroom wasn’t naturally dark, but we made it dark: we painted the walls a muted brown, had shutters on the windows, Mulberry bedding and curtains either side of the bed. Looking back, it was revolting, although at the time I thought it very atmospheric.
The kids’ rooms had beautiful curtains and bedding that matched. Amber Rose had a fantastic built-in bunk with lots of cubbyholes, cupboards and shelving. The carpenter, Steve Parry, was a real find. He made the units for the kitchen at Victoria Drive and in our current house, which is four times the size.
I have hugely happy memories of Victoria Drive, and friends still say, “I can’t believe you sold that house, it was so pretty.” But, in 2006, we saw a plot of land and decided we had learned such a lot from what we had done at Victoria Drive that we would like to build our own house. We sold very quickly, trebling our money, and I think we passed on a lovely home to the new owners.
Interview by Rosanna Greenstreet