ENCHANTED ELEGANCE
Pretty decorative touches bring grace and style to an inspiring eco-home in Somerset
Pretty, decorative touches bring charm to a Somerset cottage
a ‘spur-of-the-moment whim’ is how Louise Gray describes her move back to south Somerset, where she grew up, a few years earlier than planned. “I was living happily in Derbyshire at the time with two successful businesses,” she recalls, “but while I was visiting my mother, who is still here, I noticed that a nearby cottage was up for auction. It was 200 years old, with an attached barn – I particularly liked the fact that it hadn’t been altered in any way. So I threw caution to the wind and made a bid that fortunately turned out to be successful.”
However, it wasn’t until Louise and her Derbyshire architect, Nick Marriot, started to look closely at the property that it became clear it was even more dilapidated than it had appeared, so she asked the local heritage officer to check whether she would run into planning permission difficulties if she altered the structure. He confirmed there was nothing of interest to preserve, so Louise decided to knock down the cottage and build a two-storey, timber-framed eco-home instead. The only proviso was that the front of the building had to line up with the houses on either side.
Nick had previously worked with Clays of Skipton, a company that specialises in providing structural insulated panels. He designed the house to incorporate these extremely heat-efficient sheets for the walls and ceilings, complete with spaces pre-cut for windows and doors. “I wanted new ideas inside, but for the outside to look similar to the original building,” Louise says. “It’s on the same footprint, while incorporating a sunroom to add light and a sense of space between the cottage and adjoining barn. Clays had the panels made up in Germany to our exact measurements. I remember when they were delivered – they
came down the lane on an enormous lorry with a huge crane that lowered them into place. Then the builders constructed the house within ten days. It was incredible.” Louise’s cousin plastered all the walls, while a joiner from the area laid the wooden flooring and installed the windows, and local builders tiled the roof and clad the exterior walls with stone from a nearby quarry.
Continuing the eco theme, there is underfloor heating on the ground floor and a heat-recovery system in place that sucks in hot air from downstairs and pumps it upstairs, eliminating the need for radiators anywhere in the house. “It’s wonderful,” Louise says. “In fact, the house is so warm that we hardly ever need to have the heating on.”
When it came to the challenge of creating a home full of traditional charm inside a new-build, Louise knew that the pale linen-covered sofas, painted antique French furniture and arrangements of dried flower heads in large vintage ceramic bowls, all of which she had brought with her, would help to set the tone. She had plain linen curtains made in muted colours, scrunching up the fabric to take away its crisp newness. She also bought a set of oak dining chairs that she painted with an off-white undercoat and roughly sanded to give them a distressed appearance.
A variety of doors were then fitted to help ‘age’ the property, while also adding character – those selected for the bathrooms and bedrooms are made from oak with rustic latch handles. “I think they help create a cottagey feel,” Louise explains. A pair of old
OPPOSITE Etched-glass doors from a French hotel open onto the dining room, where a mix of classic and contemporary pieces creates a sophisticated
rustic look THIS PAGE Quirky vintage finds and a treasured painting by Arthur Maderson have been grouped to form decorative still-life displays
etched-glass doors, from a hotel in France, have been put in the entrance to the sunroom, while the embossed wooden panel attached to the living room door was part of an antique armoire.
One of the businesses Louise had in Derbyshire sold antique furniture and collectable vintage items. This took her to France on regular buying trips to the markets in Lille and Amiens: “You have to be there at 5am – that’s when you get the best stuff. I also started to buy offbeat, distressed pieces for myself – this was when I began to collect flower pictures and antique doors.”
To complete the transformation of her new home, Louise teamed painted walls in her favourite off-whites and greys from Farrow & Ball with whitewashed wooden floors. “I first discovered the pleasing combination of Hardwick White walls with Old White woodwork in 2003 when I had a fashion shop in Bakewell,” she says. “Clothes show up well against calm colours. I find these shades bring a soft, timeworn feel in a room.”
The light-filled sunroom, which connects the two parts of the house, is one of Louise’s favourite spots. Adjoining the kitchen, it accommodates the large dining table, which she and fiancé Tim use for entertaining. It also doubles up as her office in the daytime, as well as offering views of the front and back gardens.
As her taste has developed over the past decade, Louise has slowly got rid of all of what she calls her ‘shiny brown furniture’. “Unfortunately, my partner Tim, who has been living with me for the past couple of years, loves it,” she says, with a sigh, “and he has a garage full of Georgian furniture from his previous home. We’re going to move towards a mix.” With her clear sense of style and vision, there’s no doubt she’ll succeed in creating a welcoming fusion of elegant antique pieces and quirky flea-market finds.