A homestyle shop manager who has been obsessed with interior design since she was a teenager excels at creating stunning looks on a low budget. Ruth Campbell gets a few tips

EVER since she was a little girl, Ailsa Ronsdale dreamed of having a home of her own to furnish and decorate in her own unique style. Brought up in a terraced house in Stanley, County Durham, the daughter of a scaffolder and a housewife, as a teenager she was allowed to decorate her own bedroom and her mother soon let her decide on everything from paint colours to wallpaper and furniture for the family home.

When she rented her first small, one bedroom flat, at the age of 18, Ailsa, who had a job in promotions, furnished it largely from charity shops and car boot sales, determined to make it look stunning despite not having much money.

She has come a long way since then. Twenty years on, the large, four-bedroom home Ailsa lives in today oozes luxury and glamour. Although Ailsa, who is manager of the MetroCentre’s Baytree Interiors shop, is proud to reveal she still loves to bag a bargain at a car boot sale occasionally.

Although she has no interior design training, Ailsa displays natural flair. Every room is different and Ailsa is certainly not afraid to be bold. “I know a lot of people like things to flow but I like a dramatic change in every room,” she says.

Her bathroom is traditional with stone and marble effect tiles. “I love spa days and wanted it to feel like a spa. I love lighting lots of candles and feeling like I have had a spa day. That is my sanctuary,” says Ailsa.

She aimed for a rustic look in the sitting room, with its cosy log burner and tan, gold and copper colours which blend with her three liver and white marked English springer spaniel dogs, Libby, Bella and Rita. “Whenever I’m not at work, you’ll find me dressed in country tweeds and wellies out walking with my dogs. They perfectly match my living room. I think that’s why I love those colours,” she laughs.

She has even had a large, posh ‘dog bed’ made for them from the bottom of an old sofa frame and stained a warm brown to match her rounded walnut kitchen units. Here, the colour scheme is sage green, with one wall covered in traditional red brick-effect wallpaper to provide contrast.

The main bedroom is antique French style, complete with an opulent glass and gold coloured chandelier picked up at a car boot sale for £12, while Ailsa centred the dining room décor around a black and white stripy lamp bought at a car boot sale for £25. “I mix traditional and contemporary designs,” explains Ailsa, who was inspired by Winston Churchill when creating her study, complete with a floor to ceiling map of the world and large globe, based on a war cabinet room: “I was thinking of Churchill sending his soldiers out to war. That is what was in my mind.”

Ailsa doesn’t tend to follow current trends, which is why she doesn’t shop in high street stores like Next. “I design things in my head and then go out looking for what I want, coming up with a look before I see it anywhere else,” she says. “I like TK Maxx because I find unusual things there that no-one else has. Sometimes I struggle to get what I’m looking for and then the shops have it in months later.”

Her current role, at Baytree Interiors, is a dream job. “All my mirrored furniture is from the shop, as well as lamps and chairs. I’m constantly bringing home stock,” she says.

Ailsa, who went to Tanfield Comprehensive, recalls being inspired by her aunt. “My mum wasn’t really into interiors, but my auntie’s house was always beautiful. I always loved going there, she had such good taste and was very creative,” she says. She may have also inherited some of her creative talents from her grandmother Margery, who died when Ailsa was young. “Someone told me she once added a jar of coffee to white paint to get a mocha colour for her walls. I laughed because it’s the kind of thing I would do.

“My love of the traditional and Seventies and Eighties style came from Auntie Joyce. Because Mum wasn’t really interested, she let me have a say in the decoration at home. I used to choose things from a very young age. Even now, my sister won’t buy anything for her home unless she has my authorisation. She likes to be guided by me.”

When Ailsa first left school, she helped to promote new brands of cosmetics, perfumes and drinks, going on to sell, market and promote everything from coffee machines to alarm systems and Post Office products. “I have sold everything over the years,” she says. “I once even dressed up as the Home Pride soup man when I was selling that. I had very little money when I got my first flat, but it was always beautiful. I would spend every penny on something for the house in a charity shop and not think about what I had left to live on the following day.”

Ailsa went on to run sales manager training courses and build sales teams in the North-East. By the time she was 21, she was renting a terraced house. “It was gorgeous but, again, I didn’t have much money and got lots of things from charity shops.” It was when she got a job valuing houses for an estate agency that her passion for working in homes and interiors came to the fore again. “I knew that was what I wanted to do, and it gave me ideas for the future,” she says.

That led Ailsa to get a job managing a furniture outlet in Newcastle, where she could be more creative. “I used to employ interior designers to produce displays, but I became bored with their ideas so did it myself,” she says. She eventually bought her first house, where she still lives, in Consett ten years ago, extending it from three bedrooms to four and adding walk-in wardrobes, a double garage and new bathrooms, as well as extending the sitting room.

Now she feels she is ready for a change. “It was a blank canvas, with magnolia walls and I started adding my personal touch straight away, building it up over the years. I am quite happy with it now, but I am quite excited about moving on.” She is looking for a project: “I plan to find somewhere else, with big rooms, to put my stamp on. I’d like to move two or three times in the next couple of years.”

Ailsa also hopes to do some interior design work for friends and family while still working at Baytree Interiors, in order to build up a portfolio of work. “I’d like to be creative outside work too,” she says. “I have wanted to be an interior designer for as long as I can remember. I plan to help those who need inspiration on a lower budget, as this is what I’m good at. Looking back, I tend to remember details about décor and rooms in a house more than the people in it. It’s my passion.”

www.baytree-interiors.co.uk

Ailsa’s home is for sale with Rightmove for £245,000