Tour this calm and soulful Kent home

It’s said that we should strive to ‘be the change you want to see’ and Africa Daley-Clarke and her home on the Kent coast certainly reflect this sentiment, showing how slow, purposeful choices can create a stylish haven that wraps her and her family of husband and four young children in a safe embrace.

The four-bedroom Victorian semi – which Africa discovered on Rightmove at 3am, waking her bleary-eyed husband to see it and putting in an offer on the first viewing – has become home, not just literally, but also to her creativity. It’s a beautiful reflection of her values and activism against social injustice and, indeed, something of an online star with Africa’s lifestyle platform The Vitamin D Project. Values are integral to the home’s style, shining through in the decor of reclaimed, vintage and sustainable homeware, the pieces proudly reflecting Africa’s Carriacou heritage within the calm, easy-going elegance of each room.

Africa’s home has a real sense of nostalgia – the play areas in the garden, vintage pieces and simple, stripped-back bones of the house such as the brick, pine doors and wooden floors taking centre stage, hark back to gentler times of long summer days, spending the afternoon pottering or reading a book curled up in a favourite chair.

Reimagining the layout and flow of the home as soon as they first moved in – the building work was split into two phases, the front of the house and the rear, with the front elevation gutted within a matter of months – has flooded the property with lots of natural light, allowing every well-chosen detail to shine.

Indeed, a through-line of love and memory stitches each room together: pretty cushions and canopies in the bedrooms create a nostalgic softness; faded tones evoke a sense sitting in the sun; vintage, scrubbed wooden pieces and timeless children’s books speak of daydreams, of building creativity and personal stories in the simplest – and most effective – ways, through time and a free imagination.

Preloved and older pieces fill Africa’s home – one of her favourites are the theatre chairs brought from her previous London home and currently in the dining room, which she had re-covered in a striking Liberty of London print – and she loves to imagine the stories that they have to tell. ‘If they managed to stand the test of time thus far, we too are probably going to get a good run out of them in terms of longevity,’ she says. ‘And it goes without saying that vintage and reclaimed pieces also just feel that bit better than contributing to the cycle of buying new consistently.’

‘I haven’t always had the ability to stand fully by sustainable choices,’ says Africa. ‘As a child, my introduction to living sustainability was out of necessity rather than privilege and somewhere along the way in the early noughties – with the rise of fast fashion and fast interiors – it suddenly became a whole lot cheaper to overconsume, so I definitely got swept up in that for a short while. Now my advice would be to take the time to truly think about what it is you want out of your home in general and work towards those feelings that a space can bring, rather than seeking the dopamine rush of singular new and temporary pieces.’

To Africa the whole notion of ‘home’ is a feeling rather than simply bricks and mortar. ‘Home has to be able to transcend your current four walls,’ she says, ‘For us it truly is a feeling that we’ve been able to take with us as we’ve moved through many spaces over the years. It’s a feeling of safety and comfort, and a deep reflection of us and our values too.’