Me And My Home: Light, colours, action!

Madeleine Lim talks to designer Susan Collier about her South London home

Susan Collier, co-founder of the celebrated textile-design team Collier Campbell, lives in a Victorian house in Clapham

I live in Clapham in a semi-detached Victorian house which I moved into in 1999. I've lived in London since I was 18 and almost all of the time I've lived south of the river. In part, I long to live in the country, and although my mind is full of attachments to it and memories of it, my work, my family and most of my friends are here in London, so I can't think of moving too far away.

"I was originally drawn to South London because of its class mix and cultural diversity; now I also love my neighbours and friends, the wild bit on Wandsworth Common, the geese and ducklings on Clapham Common, the open-air Lido at Tooting Bec Common, and Brockwell Park, where we have a family picnic every summer.

"My present house has the blessing of a marvellous garden which leads to my studio. When I sit in my studio I'm among the birds, and I look out on my grandson's football pitch and a little spinney at the end – what more could I want? When I bought the house I started by taking out all the old woody shrubs, little navy blue trees and roses. I kept the gravel path. My predecessors had made and used fabulous compost so the soil was, and still is, remarkable. I had brought some favourite plants with me, in particular the Crambe Cordefolia that still gives its great treat in May and June.

"Once I had established my garden I started thinking about the house. It was in a perfectly reasonable state, if you like beige, and I originally thought I could move in and live in the house as it was. Far from making me rested, however, the beigeness of the house made me agitated and I started thinking, well, a coat of paint can't do any harm. There isn't a day that goes by when any of us isn't affected by colour.

"Much as I longed to rebuild the back, I didn't want to focus on that and I didn't have any spare cash. A friend took out all the built-in cupboards and archways, and this opened up the visual reach of the eye and revealed the original shape of the house. I put a plastic dome in the roof of the narrow kitchen, and the introduction of new light really extends the feeling of spaciousness.

"I hadn't expected to get so energised by having to change the house. I loved using different coloured laminated flooring to make stripes which are easily cleanable and which blotted out the over-waxed orange real-wood floors. My overriding love of colour and light runs throughout my home, my garden and my work. I use colour on the walls to make harmony or excitement within a room, to make bridges to other rooms or the garden, and to provide resting places and stillness in others.

"The rooms were much smaller than they had been in my previous house, and the architecture was unremarkable, so I had the erroneous idea that I wouldn't be able to sustain the light if I used colour that was too strong. I use colour first to blot out the connections of a previous colour. The first room I did in the house I painted a light green; I was trying the blotting out trick, but in fact it didn't work. After that, I painted it a wonderful bright turquoise – but I didn't like that either. The light, the frames of the pictures and my moods are all better served by the final fabulous yellow I settled on. Colour is a safe vehicle for me. We've been living for ages in this long period of ostentatious drabness which magazines have been pretending is smart – there's something funny about a display of minimalism in an expensive large space. Haing nothing – so cool.

"The sitting room is a room for opening presents, having parties, and for sitting, reading and talking. I think the room has a joyful and harmonious peace. The curtains are a marvellous red and ivory block- print that Collier Campbell originally designed exclusively for Habitat; beyond the curtains is the conservatory with Collier Campbell's Cote d'Azur curtains, and beyond that the garden, a sort of paradise of perennials. Patrick Caulfield's print The Sweet Bowl is hung on the wall, intensifying the already intense.

"The curved sofa is an old one from the Conran Shop and at the moment one half of it is covered with red-and-white old French woven stripes and the other half with old blue-and-white, layered with Collier Campbell cushions. The rug on the floor is red and ivory and came from Ikea for only about £65; it's a cheap, lovely and fun shop. The whole room is a mixture of Ikea, old Conran and Collier Campbell, new and old. Lights come from an obscure, expensive lighting shop from a time before this when I had more money. I painted all the floorboards mushroomy grey and put each sofa on a cheap white rug so that I could move them around without damaging the floorboards.

"One of my other favourite rooms is the bathroom, painted foxy pink, which has lots of dark wood, mahogany-framed mirrors, fans and pictures decorated or inlaid with a variety of reflective materials – dots of silver, dots of glass and dots of mother-of-pearl. There's a pretty yellow-and-white upholstered chair from a Habitat collection we designed in the 1980s; it's really nice to have a proper chair in the bathroom so you can have a decent talk with someone.

"I love to cook almost as much as I love to garden. One of the most important things in a house is to have a table with a bar to put your feet on so that you can put your elbows on the table and talk for a good long time. My new kitchen is ruled by the lovely rich dairy cream coloured New World cooker, circa 1937 which, it is rumoured, once belonged to Zsa Zsa Gabor.

"I don't like interiors shops generally – although I do like Joss Graham's shop in Eccleston Street, French hardware shops, and B & Q."

Collier Campbell: 020-7820 3628; email info@colliercampbell.com