Modern love

Cat and Stephen Caton share a passion for clean and contemporary design, which is clear to see in their Nordic-inspired interiors

From the moment Cat Caton walked through the door of a Victorian semi in rural Lancashire, she was in love. ‘Even though it didn’t have all the details my husband Stephen and I wanted, I fell for its warmth and charm,’ she says.

Unfortunately, the house didn’t strike quite the same note for Stephen. ‘This was the very first house that we viewed and he dismissed it based on its tiny bathroom and, conversely, the very large garden, as neither of us are particularly green-fingered,’ explains Cat. ‘But after six months of house hunting, nothing better had come up so we asked an architect friend to take a look at this property again with us. After we’d discussed all our

options, Stephen could see its potential and slowly came round to the idea of buying it.’

There was a lot of work to do to turn their vision into a reality and create a home for themselves and their son Lucas, now 9. ‘It had recently been painted in magnolia with Anaglypta wallpaper and beige flooring throughout,’ explains Cat. ‘Before we moved in, we ripped out all the carpet and sanded and oiled the floorboards, stripped the walls except the hall, stairs and landing, and had them freshly plastered and painted white.’

Once they had moved in, the couple set about renovating the house in stages. One of the major issues they had with the groundfloor layout was that there was no view through to the garden from the kitchen. So they created one by removing two walls and extending the space into an outhouse, adding bifold doors to the new open-plan space. ‘Doing this absorbed most of our budget but it totally transformed the house,’ says Cat.

‘The new garden room comes into its own in summer when we can watch Lucas

playing outside while we’re cooking in the kitchen or reading.’ Next, the pair crafted a cloakroom from an under-stairs cupboard, and replaced all the windows at the front. They also extended the small family bathroom to fit a shower cubicle.

Cat, a photographer, and Stephen, a graphic designer, then decorated the interior in a colourful contemporary style. Lines are clean thanks to their love of Mid-century Scandinavian design and greys, blacks and blues run throughout, with brighter hues on top. ‘ We both adore Nordic style and visit Copenhagen as much as possible,’ says Cat.

Now that the couple have ironed out all the house’s issues, it finally feels like home. ‘This is exactly how we envisaged it,’ enthuses Cat. ‘It’s the perfect party house, too. We have family and friends over all the time, and we celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary with a yurt in the garden and a pizza oven on the driveway. Everyone had such a great time. In fact, it was even better than the actual wedding!’

an offbeat shade as an alternative to making your walls the focal point.

Originally built to accommodate the horses and dogs of a grand country house, the distinctive home of Louise Jopling and her husband Steve Grime can be spotted from every aspect of their charming Midlands village, where its bell tower dominates the skyline like a watchful sentry.

Louise and Steve have a love for buildings with an interesting heritage and had viewed several quirky properties before this one. ‘This house was the last we saw,’ recalls Louise. ‘As the gates swung open and we got our first close-up view of the tower, we grinned at each other and knew we had found something really special.’

The stable block is built around a courtyard in the former grounds of an 18th-century hall. When this building was demolished in the 1960s, the courtyard was sold and the stables converted to four domestic dwellings. The couple’s home incorporates the impressive bell tower, which is in the style of an Italian campanile and bears the inscription Incorrupta Fides, meaning ‘uncorrupted faith’.

When Louise and Steve moved in, the house was in excellent structural condition, so they had no messy building work to tackle, but immediately set about altering the decor throughout. ‘There were lots of bright colours on the walls but we prefer a more muted palette so we repainted, using plenty of cream and grey, which feels more restful and is a better backdrop to our mix of furnishings,’ says Louise. Finding that redecorating the property had reawakened her lifelong love of textiles, Louise launched Tactile, her own retail business

selling fabrics and home furnishings. At home, sofas and chairs have been lovingly upholstered in a luxurious mixture of wool and linen. Louise is a fan of upcycling and many of the pieces were acquired inexpensively at auction. ‘But I prefer to invest in high-quality fabrics, to inject a new lease of life into furniture,’ she says.

When working on the stables, the couple were careful to respect the property’s history. Many original features are integral to the design, including stable doors and flooring in the hall, as well as large leaded windows, double-height ceilings on the ground floor and a stall partition, which is a feature wall within the kitchen. ‘I think the sitting room is probably our favourite place,’ says Louise. ‘ We love listening to music in there as the acoustics are superb, thanks to the high ceiling. We were also lucky to inherit some handsome bookcases which we relish, as we have hundreds of books.’

The house is set into a hillside with the bedrooms situated on a lower level. ‘All four rooms look out over the peaceful, private gardens, creating a wonderfully relaxed atmosphere,’ says Louise. ‘But the tower is the most interesting feature and we love climbing up it to show visitors the spectacular views from the top. Some people are surprised when we say we even love the chiming of the bell every hour, but to us it feels comforting. If anyone in the village has guests from abroad, we fly their national flag from the tower to welcome them – it’s a lovely tradition and one we are proud to uphold. We feel like the custodians of a very special place and I can’t see us ever leaving.’