Project journal
Be inspired by this pretty exterior transformation
Be inspired by this stunning home exterior renovation
Cottage dreams Having found their perfect village, Tina and Mark Davies were determined to live there at all costs – even if it meant taking on a big project and removing the front of the house. Tina tells us more about this stunning transformation
How did you find Forge House? We realised that with our children grown up, we could now live anywhere, so we thought we’d move as a research experiment. First we’d find out what it would be like to live in a little village for a year, and then discover what it would be like to live by the sea. The plan was to rent somewhere for a year and then move to the next place, so we rented a cottage in Nun Monkton. Interestingly enough, the cottage we rented is directly opposite the house we now own.
When we got to the end of our year in Nun Monkton, we thought about buying the rented cottage but decided to finish our experiment instead. Mark and I went to the pub to have a chat and we decided the next thing would be for us to live by the sea, and then we had another beer, went completely off-piste and decided to live on the sea. We bought a yacht and sailed across the Atlantic to the Caribbean with our dog, May.
It was an amazing adventure, but we missed
Nun Monkton a lot – not just the place but the people, too, as we’d made lots of friends – so knew that was where we wanted to return to. Our friends who owned Forge House had mentioned being interested in selling in the past, so we called them one Friday night and they said to come over the next day. The following morning we went over to Forge House, we stood on the patio and we agreed on the sale there and then.
Tell us about its history The house was built in 1800 and, as its name suggests, it used to be the home of the village blacksmith. His forge was located on the green in front of the house.
What did the house look like when you moved in? Over the years extensions had been added on to the east and west sides and it had ended up looking a bit of a jumble. The new additions meant that the
windows didn’t look like they were in the right place. Furthermore, the whole house was covered in cream-painted pebble dash – it looked like someone had thrown porridge at it.
We worked with an architect, Peter Evans, to create drawings that would make the windows more symmetrical and, thankfully, the planners agreed to let us move them, as well as replace the windows, door and porch, and to add brick slips to the exterior in place of the pebble dash.
Were you looking for a project? We weren’t looking for a project but we wanted to live in Nun Monkton and we were willing to take on anything to do that.
Did you have a vision for what you wanted the house to
look like? As a child, I used to draw what I thought the perfect house should look like, with its pretty brick exterior, roses over the door and details over the porch. It is that image from my childhood that I wanted to bring to life in our home.
Where did the exterior transformation come in the timeline
of your renovation? Transforming the exterior of the house was number one on the list of priorities.
We’d looked at it for over a year from the other side of the green when we lived in our rental house, and we knew we just couldn’t live in it as it was. We actually decided to find out whether we would get planning permission to make all the exterior changes before we completed the sale because it was so important to us.
Were you nervous about removing the pebble dash?
Definitely. A lot of people said to us that if you remove the pebble dash you’ll find things you don’t want to find – but since this is our forever home, if there was something wrong then we wanted to know so that we could fix it. Thankfully we didn’t find anything terrible save for a few cracks in the mortar, which we had pinned back in place before the brick slips were laid.
What made you decide to use brick slips? Honouring the history and the style of the village as well as the house was really important to us. We researched the looks of the other houses in the area - most of which are brick - to get an understanding of the style that is symbolic of the area. We wanted our house to blend in with the other homes in the village, rather than standing out as it did before with its unsympathetic pebble dash and UPVC windows and doors. Typically, brick slips are only used to create a feature, but we were covering the entire house. It was a big job but the finished look is really beautiful.
How did you choose the brick colours? David Armitage, who owns The York Handmade Brick Company - the famous brickmaking company - lives in the village. We took photographs of the brickwork in the houses around the village and created a montage, which we took to his office and they created a Forge House mix. York Handmade still handmakes all its bricks, and made this mix just for us. Then having
made the whole brick, they skilfully cut the top off the bricks - again by hand - for us to use as slips.
Tell us about the windows and doors We knew that we wanted traditional, hand-built sash windows and we were really passionate about working with local tradespeople. The oak windows were made by Peter Barker Joinery, who is based just a five-minute drive from the house. This meant that we were able to visit and see them being made, which added a personal touch to the process.
We knew we wanted the doors to be double doors, also made of oak, and we had the architect help us to position them to make the house look symmetrical. One day, just after, a neighbour walked past and she said ‘fenestration makes a property’ – which had us running into the house to try and figure out what she meant.
Seeing the huge difference the new windows make to the appearance of the house, we can definitely agree with our neighbour now.
How did you bring the garden back to life? Once the building work got started, the front garden became a mess of concrete, mixers and rubble. However, we very carefully protected the enormous camellias that were at the side of the house. It was an ongoing conversation with the builders so that they would understand the importance of preserving them.
While the builders were installing the brick slips, we planted about a dozen David Austin roses so that they would be beginning to establish when the fascia was finished. We love gardens but aren’t very good at gardening, so had a garden designer, Laura Bachelor help us create our dream cottage garden.
What is next? We’re going to reduce the garden wall, which was put up in the 1980s, to half the height and then add railings and a gate to complete my childhood drawing look for the house.