PERIOD RENOVATION

Undaunted by the challenges of transforming a 17th-century farmhouse, its new owners have been rewarded with an elegant family home in modern English country house style

A 17th-century farmhouse has been sympathetically updated, resulting in a contemporary country interior.

One of Steve Thorne’s great passions in life is renovating properties and he has done up a number of houses over the years, including ones that he and his family have lived in. None of them, however, has been as old as this one, a romantically situated 17th-century farmhouse in the Dorset countryside. Steve discovered the house by chance while browsing a property website and, as he had promised his wife Steph that their existing home would be the last house he would renovate, he went to see it on his own first. He continues the story.

Can you tell us what happened after the viewing?

It was at the height of summer and the house, which has extensive grounds, looked beautiful. Although Steph was none too happy about it, I persuaded her to view it too and, having seen it, she agreed we had to have it.

Have you renovated period buildings before?

In a word, no. I was happy to manage the structural work, but as parts of the house date back to the 1600s and I am used to working on contemporary homes, I knew that some of the interior work would be a bit out of my league. I did not want to get this wrong so we decided to call in an interior designer to help us. We chose Emma Sims Hilditch because we had seen her website, which features rooms with the elegant, muted shades and pops of colour that Steph and I love; it was the modern country look that we were after.

What structural work did you undertake?

The house had not been touched for years so, not surprisingly, we needed to repair the roof, rewire and put in new plumbing, but in doing so we found that we also needed to rebuild chimneys, replace the iron guttering and the down pipes, and put in new windows and doors, and we had to replaster throughout. The ground floor had been laid straight onto dirt so we decided to take up the flooring throughout this level and we excavated four feet down before putting in a new wood floor.

Did you extend the house?

We installed a two-storey oak frame extension at the back, so that we could enlarge the kitchen and have a boot room leading o≠ it, with a guest bedroom on the floor above. I love oak frames and since putting in the extension, I have used the same kind of construction to convert the garage, to turn the pigsty into a gymnasium and to build an outdoor kitchen.

What was your design inspiration for the rooms?

I wanted to emulate the eclectic style of designer Kit Kemp, and the colours for the sitting room and our bedroom were inspired by the rooms in our favourite Crosby Street Hotel in New York. Steph was particularly involved in creating the kitchen as she had a clear vision of how it should work.

Will this be your last renovation project?

I am always on the lookout for the next one, but I admit that as we live through the passing seasons here, I’ve found myself falling in love with this house more and more. I know Steph would like it to be our “forever” home, and we have just taken on a flock of chickens, so who knows?