Outside influence

‘The architect always said, with the woods all around us, it was very much a treehouse. The setting was definitely an influence. Because we’re up on this first floor, you get a view of wildlife and birds, squirrels chasing each other, and at night there are bats and owls. There are houses lower down behind us in the cul-de-sac. When the kids walk home from school, up in the trees is our kitchen with the lights in the window.

‘The idea of using wood cladding was there from the start. I showed the architect examples of things we’d seen. We did investigate what else we could use when we went through the cost of the wood, and the practicalities of how to get it fixed, make it watertight and maintain it, but other materials would have been too stark or a bit dull.’