AT HOME WITH...
Owners Rebecca and Ben Sterling bought the house in 2016. Rebecca is a blogger (rosesandrolltops.co.uk) and Instagram influencer (@rvk_loves). House Three-bedroom Grade Ii-listed country house, built around 1800 and split into a pair of semis in the Sixties.
elderly couple who had lived here for 40 years,’ says rebecca. ‘it was very dated and desperately needed modernisation, yet lots of the original character had been stripped out over the years. We weren’t really looking to move house at the time, but the thought of taking on this place, one of the most beautiful houses in the village, was incredibly exciting.’
rebecca and Ben got cracking, stripping out oldfashioned wallpaper, revealing walls in severe need of replastering. they ripped up garish carpets to find original floorboards in need of tlc to restore their beauty. they replaced marble fireplaces with more suitable wooden surrounds. and, of course, they installed all the utilities needed to bring the house up to modern standards. ‘Ben is a property developer, so none of this work worried us,’ says rebecca. ‘But what did slow us down was trying to get our ideas for the rest of the house through planning.’
the house is listed, so the authorities were strict – architectural details, including an archway upstairs and a window between the utility and living room, had to be retained, and the couple’s plan to build a twostorey kitchen extension was rejected. it was while they were waiting for planning decisions that the
couple began work on their other great love, the garden. ‘We both grew up with green fingers, as our parents, and our grandparents especially, encouraged us in the garden,’ says rebecca. ‘as soon as we were given the keys to the house, we started clearing out all the shrubs and levelling the land to create a flat canvas for planting.’
they marked out the beds with bamboo poles and string, inspired by the garden of a stately home that had intersecting flower beds at its centre. ‘it’s a wide plot and simply having borders around the edges would be a little boring,’ rebecca says. ‘We wanted english cottage garden plants, so we chose roses and lavender hedges to provide structure, then used seasonal plants such as alliums and dahlias to create softer, less formal shapes.’ Ben also built the greenhouse, using timber and glass so it blends seamlessly with the rest of the property, and added a vintage dresser inside for a timeworn, summer house feel.
Work is ongoing. ‘there are still a few other jobs i’d like to do, such as adding a patio near the summer house and fitting a logburner in the kitchen space,’ says rebecca. ‘But we’re quite happy to tackle these gradually in the coming years, so that we can have an even better balance between work and travel, home and garden, and spending time with each other and all the people we love.’