COUNTRY LIFE

Dan Carter renovated his thatched house room by room to create a modern, picture-perfect weekend retreat

- MELANIE WHITEHOUSE

Dan Carter’s home may look like the quintessential Suffolk cottage now, but it was just a shell when he bought it. ‘I didn’t realise the kitchen was freestanding, and the sellers literally left me with a kitchen sink and one wall-mounted radiator,’ he says.

Dan had been looking for a second home outside London and wanted a renovation project where he could do a lot of the work himself. ‘I was originally thinking about a large Georgian townhouse in Diss but it had very little outside space,’ he says. ‘Then I found the cottage. It was originally two buildings – a thatched hall house and forge – and it was love at first sight. Turning into the twisted driveway was magical, but then I walked down the long field behind the garden, looked back, and I was hooked. It was so totally chocolate box.’ The cottage also had one-and-a-half acres of flat garden where friends could pitch a tent and stay over. But before that could happen, there was a lot of work to do.