NEW-BUILD HOME

Having taken seven years to plan and build from scratch, this Yorkshire property, in the style of a rustic cottage orné, has all the allure of a charming home from a children’s storybook

Thoughtful lighting and an ever-evolving plan were key to the successful design of a rustic retreat in Yorkshire that is made for modern family living.

DINING AREA When they were younger, each of the children had their own chair, brightly painted by Philippa. Now that the chairs are outgrown, they hang on the wall, their colours chiming with paper bells – Christmas decorations which, one year, were never taken down.

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Picture an idyllic woodland cottage and Rupert and Philippa Abrahams’ Yorkshire home may come to mind. The newly built house sits amid the Nidderdale Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB), on land bought by Rupert’s parents in the late 1970s and later o≠ered to their son and daughter-in-law as somewhere to create their own home.

LABOUR OF LOVE

Open to the challenge, the couple had decided to knock down an existing one-storey structure and replace it with this modern version of a cottage ornž, a stylised, Romantic-era rustic retreat. The AONB status of the area meant it took four years for planning permission to be granted and a further three years for the building work to be completed. However, the result – a home with an exquisitely conceived structure, full of character and architectural details with inviting living spaces – was well worth the wait.

ROOM TO GROW

Having an interior designer in the family (Rupert’s sister, Tor Vivian) meant that Philippa was able to involve her in the project from the start. “Tor knows our style and she also understands what a family needs.”

In terms of the arrangement of the rooms, they decided on an open-plan kitchen, dining and sitting room, a large hall that doubles as a sitting area and library for Philippa and Rupert, and a side entrance with a boot room. There is also a separate playroom which, when the children are

older, will become a more grown-up sitting room. “When you’ve got a home that you intend to stay in, it’s good to plan ahead and to think about what you’ll need in ten years’ time,” advises Tor. To that end, she devised a lighting scheme for the playroom that currently illuminates the piano but which will, in future, focus on shelves and bookcases, the designs for which she has already drawn up. “I tend to go a bit overboard with lights,” she says. “You can always turn them off, but it’s hard to add them later.”

PATCHWORK OF PATTERN

As the house has been designed to evolve with the family, so its decoration has developed over time, an advantage of the long design-and-build phase. “It was quite organic,” says Philippa. “Tor told me to pick a couple of colours and to work outwards from there. I love pink and green together, so that was the starting point for many of the rooms.”

Furniture that Philippa had collected over the years, including family heirlooms and pieces picked up at auctions and junk shops, have been reupholstered in a decorative mix of pattern and colour. “We felt that we already had lots of lovely furniture, so we bought very few new pieces,” says Philippa, who covered several chairs and a sofa herself in patchworks of fabric o≠cuts.

The overall look is one of comfort, colour and ease, a relaxed ambience that belies the meticulous thought and care that has gone into its planning. Although it is a house that was seven years in the making, it will be at the heart of its owners’ lives for many more to come.