You must never take anything for granted when you visit Susan Collis. At our first meeting in her tiny Hoxton studio, I was about to put a mug of coffee down on a paint-spattered table when, just before the hot mug touched the surface, I realised that the drips of paint were in fact inlays of freshwater pearls and white opal. The next likely resting place seemed to be a carelessly strewn dustsheet, but on closer inspection the flecks of grey paint proved to be hand-embroidered silk. Eventually, I put the coffee cup down on my notebook; I knew that was real enough.

Susan Collis is an illusionist who uses applied art to create her deceptions. At her cottage in Sussex, where she has more space and leisure to work, she is finalising pieces for an exhibition that is part of a show at the V&A called Out of the Ordinary: Spectacular Craft. Among the trompe-l’oeil objects are apparently ordinary carpenter’s screws made from white gold rather than steel, and a broom whose nicks and indents are garnets, black onyx and marcasite.

“I started with the splash-and-stain motifs because they are what’s left over after making art; the residue,” she explains. “It’s about art’s dirty secrets. I’m also interested in how and where art is shown – usually in pristine gallery environments – and I like to do something that subverts that clean space.”

Susan’s offbeat take on art is also seen at the seaside cottage near Rye which she shares with her cinematographer husband, Peter. “We’re half a mile from the shingle beach and the sea,” says Peter. “It’s a site of special scientific interest and there are great seasonal displays of flowers and vegetation. I knew the area before we bought the house because I used to cycle along outside when I was a lad.”

“We have a rented flat in London where we live when we’re working and teaching in the city,” Susan continues, “but this is our real home.” The couple have had the house for ten years and Peter has been responsible for much of the structural work, adding a conservatory, kitchen and shed. But it is the decoration that catches your eye and gives the Edwardian cottage its friendly, welcoming feel. “My work is restrained and concentrated, so perhaps that’s why I’ve gone for lots of colour and pattern here; I have an outlet in our home,” explains Susan.

The cottage is furnished with a mix of mainly Fifties furniture and fabrics sourced from Susan’s father, car-boot sales and junk shops. “I’m addicted to eBay,” she confesses. The single most obvious result of this addiction is the blue, pink and yellow bathroom. “It took three years to accumulate all the pieces. We bought three different suites and had to mix and match bits to make one good one.” The result is a Battenberg cake of pastel ceramics that gives morning ablutions a lift even on the dullest November morning.

On the same floor as the bathroom is the bedroom, its walls left bare after the epic stripping of three layers of paper. “We just added thin washes of paint to soften the yellowness of the original plaster and left it at that,” says Peter. A weathered groyne, part of the washed away sea defences of the nearby beach, is used to make a bookshelf.

The ground floor living room has a dining space with a long table that is usually monopolised by Susan’s work, and a cosy rear sitting area with a log-burning stove under a painted driftwood mantel. The sofa slots neatly under the rise of the stairs and what was once the window overlooking the back garden has been blocked in and made into shelves, which hold an intriguing mix of trinkets and decorated shot glasses, as well as books, carved wooden birds and vases. “My favourite possession is a clock that my aunt gave me,” says Susan. This sits on a shelf in the end of the room reserved for dining, and features a ship which appears to bob up and down on moving waves as the sky changes from sunrise yellow to eventide grey.

The kitchen has a reconditioned and fully functioning Fifties Belling stove, brightly patterned curtains made from material from the same decade and a shelf full of vintage and humorous salt and pepper pots. Vintage enamel cake tins and food storage jars and patterned pots and pans add to the colour and homeliness. Beyond the kitchen is the bright orange conservatory, which looks out over the narrow but well-stocked garden and the neighbour’s vegetable patch. An old French herb-drying rack has been pressed into service as a makeshift chandelier with an odd collection of pots and glass candle holders dangling from its metal arms. The conservatory is also the place where Susan “breeds” an extensive collection of cacti and succulents, which are shipped back to her Hoxton studio.

Susan and Peter’s home is a playful place. “It is somewhere we are always so happy to come down to,” she says. Nothing about it is precious or affected; it is there to be loved and enjoyed. What you see is what you get, unlike in Susan’s art.

Out of the Ordinary: Spectacular Craft is at the V&A from November 13 to February 17 (020-7942 2000; www.vam.ac.uk)

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