When it came to the finishes and furnishings, Mark worked with Cornish Gems Interior Design and only has praise for their work: “Tara did an amazing job. She listened to us and came up with great ideas”


Inside, the interior doors are off-the-shelf in solid oak and the bespoke stairs have solid oak treads.


Although the cottage is a solid stone- built property, granite is notorious for damp problems. The pointing is all lime mortar, which allows the building to breathe, but it still needs to be weatherproofed. Darren used a form of tanking called a cavity drain membrane, which is often referred to as having an ‘egg crate structure’. This is fixed to the interior stone face, with the bottom of the membrane extending past the new oor construction. This allows moisture to “track down the cavity and drain at the base of the wall to free-draining ground,” explains Dan Sheriff of architecture practice Lilly


may/jun 2024


Lewarne. “These types of membranes are often specified for projects such as barn conversions, and there are a wide range of manufacturers and suppliers to choose from.”


Mark then had a new timber frame slotted inside the walls, which is insulated and sealed with plastic sheeting and plasterboard. The build system in the extension is the same, as the exterior is clad in either granite or hung slate. The new roof has a steel frame, which is supported on both the existing external walls using concrete pad stones, and a centralised vertical steel column, which extends down to the first-oor level and is supported by a series of horizontally spanning steels, which connect into the existing external wall construction.


www.sbhonline.co.uk 45


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68