A room for all seasons

Interior designer Sarah Vanrenen has created an outdoor room that’s perfect for summer (and winter) entertaining, finds Amelia Thorpe

- Amelia Thorpe

THERE’S no such thing as bad weather, only unsuitable clothing,’ wrote Alfred Wainwright the late, great Lancastrian fell walker and author. The past 18 months have taught us that the same principle applies to outdoor spaces, which have become a vital part of our social lives and simply need to be properly kitted out. Together with Zoom parents’ evenings and home deliveries, structures prepared for alfresco entertaining look set to be one of the enduring legacies of lockdown.

The interior designer Sarah Vanrenen is a vocal advocate of outdoor entertaining, come rain or shine. When pondering the use of a 300-year-old flint barn next to her home on a farm in Wiltshire, she decided to create the ultimate outdoor sitting room. ‘Even in summer, it can be chilly in the evenings, so I considered how I could create a warm, inviting place to sit outside around a roaring fire,’ she says. Having persuaded her husband, Grant, that it would be better to re-purpose the barn as a garden room, rather than an office, she set about planning the project in the same way she would an indoor room.