PRETTY PERFECT
Josephine Burlingham decided to transform a dated cottage into a family home – and it couldn’t have turned out better
This wisteria-draped Devon cottage proved an idyllic home for a young family
Every spring, as the pale purple wisteria comes into bloom outside Josephine Burlingham’s pretty stone cottage, its heady scent reminds her how she first stumbled across the home she came to fall in love with. ‘I remember seeing a tiny photograph of a house, smothered in wisteria, tucked away in the corner of a newspaper,’ she says. ‘If I’d blinked, I’d have missed it.’ Luckily, the image of the cottage, in a pretty village near Exeter, grabbed her attention and Josephine immediately arranged the viewing that would change the course of her and husband Alex’s lives. ‘At the time, I was expecting twins and we urgently needed more space than our little house in Plymouth afforded us,’ she adds.
Having clinched the deal, the Burlinghams moved in – five weeks before Lily and Archie, now 13, were born in 2006. ‘During
the initial viewing I instantly knew this would be a project I could really get my teeth into as the cottage was in need of updating,’ says Josephine. ‘The multicoloured tiles in the kitchen and green carpet in the bathroom weren’t to my taste and the orange pine and stained black wood needed toning down.’
One of the main draws was a large barn, attached to the cottage, which had planning permission to be converted. ‘During our initial viewing, I noticed that this was used as a dumping ground,’ says Josephine. ‘Although there were chickens strutting about in it, all I could visualise was a terrific space where, eventually, we could create a light-filled garden room.’
Once Lily and Archie were born, work on the cottage took a back seat.. ‘A decorator gave all the walls and stained-black doors
a lick of neutral paint, which helped,’ says Josephine. However, she began gradually tackling the long list of jobs to enhance and personalise every room with her charming, subtle schemes and carefully considered touches. ‘When Alex and I moved in, the hall was extremely dark,’ says Josephine. ‘We glazed the top halves of the doors so light could stream in, creating a more welcoming entrance.’ Next up was banishing the garish kitchen splashback tiles by cladding the walls in tongue-and-groove panelling. The shelves and handles were swapped and a new range cooker and worktop fitted.
In 2010, the alterations to the barn began. ‘I really wanted this room to be a lovely airy space and, thankfully, the planners agreed to four, rather than two skylights, plus, a “wall” of floor-to-ceiling windows with a door out into the garden,’ says Josephine. As she knew from the outset, knocking through would impact dramatically on the rest of the property. Not only would the adjacent kitchen instantly become much brighter, but the couple would also acquire their long-awaited “grown-up” room. ‘Finally Alex and I had somewhere peaceful to wind down, instead of being surrounded by “plastic fantastic” in the sitting room,’ she explains.
Over the years, Josephine has juggled running her thriving interior-design business, Country & Coastal Interiors, with bringing this stunning renovation to fruition. ‘It’s been quite some journey, but definitely worth all the effort as the cottage now has so much more depth and soul,’ says Josephine. ‘The village has a great sense of community and we’re both thrilled to be bringing up our children in such a wonderful part of the world.’
For Rebecca and Andrew Head, finding the right home wasn’t easy – after 18 months of bidding without success at property auctions, they were feeling decidedly disheartened. That is, until they viewed a detached bungalow in the suburbs of Sydney. ‘Andrew and I have the ability to see the potential in a home, and we knew straight away this was the one,’ says Rebecca. ‘It was in a liveable state, yet there was lots of scope for improvement, which is the kind of project we were looking for.’ And best of all, they secured the house at auction.
Wisely, the couple opted to live there for a year before committing to any changes but when the time came, they certainly didn’t hold back. After opening up the rear of the house, levelling the uneven floors from front to back, they removed a dividing wall to turn a tired Seventies kitchen and adjacent sitting room into an L-shaped kitchen-diner.
At the heart of this space sits a large dining table that Rebecca deemed a must-have item to meet the needs of the family, which includes sons Oscar, 13, Harry, 11, and Oliver, seven. The other new and equally eye-catching addition here is the set of bifold doors installed to replace rusty aluminium ones, and which look onto the new travertine-paved patio, complete with swimming pool.
One year after transforming the rear of the home, the couple’s attentions turned to the upstairs, where a whole new floor was added. ‘It was a major project and could have been a nightmare if we hadn’t been lucky enough to have
reliable builders,’ says Rebecca. ‘Every day we would liaise with the construction manager and various subcontractors and this helped create a seamless process.’
And when the builders moved out, Rebecca and Andrew could finally move in to their ‘parents retreat’, comprising a walk-in wardrobe and master en suite with its own sitting area. ‘We felt we needed a space that we could relax in after a busy day and just chill out, and this proved the perfect sanctuary,’ says Rebecca.
For everyday living, however, it is the ground floor the family mainly inhabit – and here there’s a space for every occasion. The sitting room is an area Rebecca put a great deal of thought into. ‘Initially we tried modular seating but it didn’t work, so we opted for conventional sofas and installed custom-made window seats with storage,’ says Rebecca. ‘I think it hangs together nicely now.’
But the focal point of the Heads’ home remains the kitchen-diner, where the family naturally gravitate to. As elsewhere, it’s fairly low-maintenance but not at the expense of elegance. The decor is in white, with bowls and ceramics tastefully displayed in glass-fronted wall cupboards.
Rebecca is justifiably proud of the family home she and Andrew have created, and that it manages to be stylish without being precious. ‘For me, it was always about creating a loving, inviting, coastal-style family home, that was “bullet-proof” with three young boys living under its roof,’ she says. ‘I think we’ve achieved that.’