THE LONG VIEW:

Designer Claire Murray may have no garden but she has brought the outside into the converted Co-op shop she calls home. Pictures

OP of Claire and Adam Murray’s wish list when they were house hunting was a garden for their little boy to play in and somewhere to grow veg.

So they surprised themselves when they bought a converted shop that had no outside space whatsoever. “A lot of the houses we looked at had low ceilings and small windows and this house was the opposite. It has big windows and the rooms have height plus we got a lot more interior space for our money, so we compromised,” says Claire, an art teacher and designer.

The fact it had no garden also meant they didn’t have to fight other buyers for it when they bought at the top of the market five years ago.

“It’s worked out really well because there’s little park right across from the house that Sam can play in and there’s a patch of communal land opposite that we got permission to grow veg on.

“Plus the views from the house are incredible so we don’t miss having a garden.”

The property, in a village near Sowerby Bridge, is an old Co-op store that was converted in the 1980s. It sits high on the side of a hill and boasts some of Calderdale’s finest views from all three of its floors. The generous size gives them a large, open plan living space on the ground level, two bedrooms and two bathrooms on the second floor and a huge converted loft space on the third floor that acts as a guest room, a studio for Claire and an office for Adam, who works in publishing.

The house had been renovated but it was draughty thanks to the old, single glazed windows, so the couple consulted the Green Building Store at nearby Golcar. They suggested replacing them with double glazing in hardwood frames, which were then painted dark grey.

Claire also re-painted the duck-egg blue kitchen units in a more subtle, neutral cream to match the white walls. Colour in the open plan room comes from accessories including red and green Sheurich pots and vases from Caldene antiques centre in Mytholmroyd and