By Jacqui Smith, interior designer

Our relationship with Barratt Homes began some years ago when they started building in Lindfield. They were very keen to engage with the local community as much as possible; sponsoring the Lindfield Arts Festival and donating money to local schools were two ways in which they supported the village community. When we secured the contract for the second show home at The Limes, I was keen to keep as much of the resulting business in the local area by using local curtain makers, track fitters, high street retailers for some of the accessories and working with Leesa Le May on the art. It’s great to work with local businesses for a number of reasons notwithstanding the fact that they are right on your doorstep making the logistics a little easier. Leesa was a total trooper on our first Barratt show home, responding quickly to feedback from the client and turning things around really quickly. I still remember, feeling slightly rabbit in the headlights with the pressure of the first one and having just been monumentally let down by our furniture supplier. I turned up on Leesa’s doorstep one evening with one of the pieces which Barratt has asked us to tweak and had the sheer bliss of Leesa looking me squarely in the face with the words, “You can take this off your worry list; it’s sorted”. Just what I needed to hear!

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