DERBYSHIRE COTTAGE

GEMMA BOND JOINED TWO COTTAGES TOGETHER TO CREATE A COSY FAMILY HOME AWASH WITH WARM TONES AND GORGEOUS TEXTURES

Warm hits of colour and rich textures weave their wonders on a chic Victorian renovation

Wewere looking to move to this village, as it’s one of the loveliest in Derbyshire,’ says Gemma Bond of the place where she and her family now live. Houses here don’t come up for sale often, so the Bonds couldn’t believe their luck when a terraced cottage went on the market soon after they started looking. ‘We were thrilled, as it was on a good road,’ says Gemma. Then, in the six months it took to buy it, the cottage next door went on sale. ‘Someone else bought the cottage next door in the hope that our sale would fall through but, when it didn’t, they pulled out so then we decided to buy it. We felt we were lucky enough to be able to buy one house on this road, let alone two.’

It took around eight months to complete the sale and the Bonds moved into one cottage while they did the other up and got planning permission for a kitchen extension at the back of that. An architect drew up plans, and Simon and his friends did the work, which involved taking the house back to the bare bones, rewiring and replumbing.

After two years, work on the first house was finished.

The family moved in and lived there for three years before tackling the cottage next door. This was even more of a challenge, as there were lots of structural problems. The ceilings were all at the wrong height so had to be reinstalled, new floors were put in and staircases were removed. Upstairs, one of the bedrooms was made smaller so another could