‘it was stuck in the eighties’

A large dose of imagination would be needed to transform Anne’s dated detached home in Oxfordshire

When my husband Jeremy and I moved here from London in 1999, we bought a 400-year-old cottage,’ says Anne. ‘It was quirky and jam-packed with period features, including beams, an inglenook fireplace and wonky floorboards. Jeremy runs a company called Collars which makes hand-crafted wooden oars, masts and spars for boats, and he’s great at woodwork and all sorts of DIY jobs.

I’ve got a background in fashion and textiles and just love interiors, so we both relished putting our stamp on the cottage. Although it was initially ideal, after our four children came along, it became increasingly tight for space and there was no way of extending.

On the hunt

We started house-hunting in earnest in 2013. As weeks rolled into months, nothing we viewed appealed at all. Running out of options, we decided to view this Eighties house – just a fiveminute walk away from our cottage. We were really impressed by its location. It was a corner plot with a gated driveway and ample parking. It felt secluded and peaceful. Inside, the surprises continued. Jeremy and I were bowled over by the vast potential this dated house offered. Walking from room to room, we could easily see how, with time and effort, we could radically reconfigure the layout.

The planning

Downstairs, the galley kitchen was crying out to be knocked through to create an open-plan kitchen-diner, while converting the garage into an adjoining snug seemed straightforward. The hall was spacious and there was a downstairs loo, plus another room. On the first floor, there