Welcome to my home
T“I wanted the house to have a ‘jeans and T-shirt’ style – completely relaxed and nothing fancy ”
he village of Elie has always been a home away from home for Jo Allchurch: although she grew up in Glasgow, she holidayed here as a child. ‘My mother moved here in the end, so the area very much feels like home,’ she says. But, having settled miles away in London with a family of her own, it made sense to Jo to buy a second home in Elie, so she could spend as much time as possible with her mum. ‘When this house came on the market, it just felt right, so we bought it three years ago.’
Historically a fishing village, Elie is now a popular destination for golfers and beach lovers. The seafront property overlooks the beach and has the main living rooms upstairs, to profit from the amazing view. When the Allchurches bought it, the house needed complete renovation and modernisation. ‘We completely gutted the house, which took a year,’ says Jo. Managing such a big project long distance was too big a challenge, so Jo and David hired a local architect, Andrew Forgan, who kept things on track.
Structurally, the biggest change to the property has been adding a glass box at the top of the stairs to bring more light into the house. ‘Originally, the staircase was blocked off from the main living space and the hallway was really dark,’ Jo explains. ‘The planners weren’t keen at first, but we got there in the end and now the house is flooded with light,’ she says.
When it came to redecorating, Jo kept things simple: ‘It’s our second home, so we didn’t want to overstretch ourselves financially,’ she says. ‘And anyway, this house isn’t about showing off or impressing anyone – we just wanted somewhere we could all hang out together and chill out. We’ve gone for clean, simple looks instead of splashing out on designer-style stuff.’
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