STARTING OVER

Lucy and Chris Wright’s 19th-century cottage was ingeniously reconfigured to make it ready for modern-day life

- VIVIENNE AYERS

Quirky proportions, nooks and crannies may give a cottage quaint appeal, but they don’t always cut it for modern life – as Lucy and Chris Wright discovered when they bought this Hampshire hideaway. They loved the property and its position, but the layout was a different matter. After three years of making do, it was time for a change…

The couple moved to the village from London 15 years ago, looking for a better way of life for their children. ‘We had friends in the area, and it was perfect because there were good schools nearby and it was commutable for Chris’s job,’ says Lucy. ‘We rented until we found this cottage, which belonged to friends of my sister. The appeal was instant because it’s so pretty. The cottage had been extended over the years – it’s like a Tardis as it’s bigger inside than it looks from the outside. We adored the original features such as the windows and beams, and the kitchen had a lovely cosy feel. The proportions of the rooms were good, too. We also liked that it was situated in a lovely village with a nice pub, a tennis club and lots of families around. It was in a conservation area, but it wasn’t listed. It ticked all our boxes.’

Lucy and Chris decided to live in the house for a while until they figured out what they needed to do. Three years later, in search of inspiration, Lucy decided to do a one-day interior design course with Stephanie Dunning of Dunning & Everard. It helped her realise that there was too much work for her to do to the cottage on her own and she enlisted Stephanie’s help to rework the ground floor.