EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW AND PHOTOS AT HER OWN PLACE IN THE SUN LAURA HAMILTON

TELLS OF CREATING A HAPPY HOME FOR HER CHILDREN

- JANE DOWDESWELL

Labour of love is the phrase that springs to mind when Laura Hamilton welcomes us to her beautiful Surrey home, complete with gardens that lead down to a lake and its very own folly.

The renovation has taken more than a year to complete and when HELLO! was last here, the A Place in  the Sun presenter was in hard hat and hi-vis amid structural work to create the perfect place for her and her children, Rocco, nine, and Tahlia, eight.

“It was a house when I bought it and now it’s a home,” she says. “Even I sometimes forget what a huge project it’s been and I can be hard on myself, but then I have friends who say: ‘Laura, it’s insane! Look at what you’ve done here, you’ve built a house!’

“I put my heart and soul into recreating every inch of the space. It felt like designing and building a new home.”

Laura’s ambitious plans included knocking down and replacing interior walls and creating a two-storey extension while retaining the charm of the Georgian building, which is now sustainable, too.

“I took out the oil tank and put in an air source heat pump and I have solar panels, but they’re not visible. Externally, it is so aesthetically beautiful.”

DIFFICULT TIMES

Not all has gone to plan though – take the fire that blazed out of control, spreading from her garden to the rear of the property, melting guttering and smashing windows, before it was brought under control. And the rampant ivy that seemed intent on destroying the 16th-century folly. Not to mention the nasty discovery that rats had inhabited the loft.