The cottage came with 1.5 acres of land – more than they knew what to do with – and had “huge potential,” says the couple.
“We didn’t really want this amount of land but it was too good an opportunity to miss, and the house had a really good feel to it. It was gut instinct that made us buy it,” says Carly. The farm cottage, built in the 1850s, is one of three adjoining properties and had a very small ground floor footprint. There was a staircase running directly from the sitting room and the previous owners had extended to create a bigger kitchen and two bedrooms upstairs. The resulting L-shaped property had an added lean- to. There was a wood-burning stove with a back boiler, and few windows to bring natural light into the property.
Carly and Tom were unfazed by the dated design and bought the house in October 2016 for £350,000. They didn’t move in straight away, however. In fact building work didn’t start until over a year later, in February 2018, after months of painstaking planning and preparation. “Tim gave us lots of design ideas,” says Tom. “We studied architecture together at university and while I have a degree in architecture, Tim is really visual and forward thinking. We trusted his judgement and advice completely. Although he is a very good friend, that didn’t stop him being very professional
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and cutting to the chase. He listened to what we wanted for the house, how we wanted to live in it, and came up with four or five key designs based on our wish list.”
While Tim’s strength lies in seeing the bigger picture, Tom has a finely tuned eye for detail and, between them, they were able to bat ideas back and forth until they agreed on the final design.
The build involved knocking down the old lean-to and erecting a new kitchen extension in its place, before knocking out the original exterior wall to create one large room
ABOVE
The spacious kitchen has been built to link both sides of the original L-shaped house, where there was once a lean-to
OPPOSITE
It took the builder a week – and four pneumatic drills – to break through the concrete floor to install underfloor heating
HIGH POINT
“Finally moving in after nearly two years of planning and building. It’s been quite a journey, but now we wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.” – Carly & Tom Holliday
september/october 2019
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