STARTING FROM scratch

BUILDING ON A HILL GAVE JOANNA AND SAM FLETCHER AMAZING VIEWS AND A CHANCE TO CREATE THE PERFECT FAMILY HOME

- KAREN WILSON

Living area

‘I love our wood burner – I’ll happily sit here for hours without the TV on,’ says Joanna.

BUY THE KEY PIECES

Baton pendants, £84.99 each, Dowsing & Reynolds. Porto sofa, from £1,599, Swoon. 556 wood-burning stove, from £2,195, Contura. Cushions, from £48 each, Ruth Holly. Gronadal rocking chair, £179, Ikea

HOME NOTES

WHO LIVES HERE?

Joanna Fletcher, a packaging designer, lives here with her husband Sam, who co-owns a design, web and marketing company, and their children, a son, seven, and a daughter, three, plus house rabbit Smudge.

THE PROPERTY

A six-bedroom, three-floor new-build house in the Ribble Valley, Lancashire.

After being rescued by boat when their first home flooded on Boxing Day 2015, Joanna and Sam were keen to buy a house nearby on higher ground. ‘After the flood, we rebuilt and extended to make it a four-bedroom home,’ says Joanna. ‘We lived there for three happy years until we were ready for a new challenge. Sam had always liked the look of some 1950s bungalows on a hill in the village, so he put a letter through each door. Some months later we had a phone call from one of the owners’ daughters, asking if we wanted to buy the house. It had three bedrooms, a kitchen, living room and avocado bathroom suite on one floor, with a shallow unusable basement. Although it wasn’t quite what I’d envisaged, it had amazing views and there was definitely no risk of flooding.’

THE PLANS