A Chocolate Box English Cottage

Homeowners Suzanne Gattrell Hodshon, a textural artist (nestand burrow.co.uk), and her husband Will, a marine geologist Family Isobel, 8, and Gabriel, 4 Location Village outside Bath Property Four-bedroom, semi-detached house built in 1947.

Despite living the dream life in Western Australia for 12 years, in 2012 Suzanne Gattrell Hodshon and her husband Will felt it was finally time to come home. ‘Both our families were back in the UK, and once our siblings started having kids, we wanted to be part of life here again,’ Suzanne explains. When Will spotted a job in Bath, the couple didn’t hesitate, and within two months they had sold their house and flown back to England with all of their worldly possessions and three-year-old daughter Isobel in tow. Having owned a contemporary home in Australia for so long, the couple held a romantic notion of living in a quintessential chocolate box cottage, and were fortunate to rent just that for six months while they were looking for a place to buy. The experience, however, was not quite what they had imagined. ‘We got to see firsthand the reality of what life is like in an old house,’ recalls Suzanne. ‘I love light and space, so although they were beautiful, the small rooms and windows created a dark environment that wasn’t the best introduction back into a British winter. After that, we altered our search criteria somewhat!’

Up above, meanwhile, the extension created space for a master bedroom with an en suite, as well as a new upstairs family bathroom. ‘We had to carve a bit off the original main bedroom to add the access corridor to the new rooms,’ explains Will, ‘but it’s still a good-size double for Isobel.’ To save money, Suzanne and Will did as much work on the house and garden themselves as they could. ‘Will built the kitchen from scratch, recycling some of the ash units from the old one, and stripping them back to remove some of the heavy detailing,’ Suzanne explains. ‘He even laid his hands on some ceiling joists from a nearby Georgian property that was being demolished, that would otherwise have ended up in a skip. He then used them to build the wall shelves, kitchen island and surrounds for the fridge and oven, topping it all off with poured concrete worksurfaces for a rustic look with a twist.’ Will’s clever ideas saved the family a fortune, and as they then bought all of their appliances on eBay, the entire kitchen cost just £700.

The budget also played its part in the furnishing of the rest of the house, too. ‘We had ploughed all our money into the building work,’ Suzanne explains, ‘so didn’t have much left over to replace anything, but we were lucky that the furniture we’d shipped back to the UK worked. We’ve had to buy some new pieces for the extra rooms, such as the conservatory furniture and the sofa for the kitchen seating area, but I’ve hunted down inexpensive options.’ So as not to steal focus from the furniture and beautiful wooden, concrete and stone surfaces, Suzanne and Will chose to paint their new spaces white. ‘The inspiration behind this was a fresh, Scandi look, to make the rooms as light and bright as possible,’ says Suzanne. The simple walls also make the perfect backdrop for her Merino wool hangings, which add layers of texture to the pared-back scheme. ‘My designs are either natural or dyed in gentle hues,’ she says, ‘so it’s not about making a bold statement – it’s what I call “cosying-up your world” to enhance the living environment.’

As for the older rooms, that’s a job for the future: ‘We need to redecorate all the areas in the original part of the house to match the new spaces, but not urgently,’ Will says. As the project took nearly two years, the young family is more than happy to hit the pause button on renovations for now. ‘We’ve shifted the focus onto travelling, days out, and spending time with friends and family,’ says Suzanne. ‘But everything we have endured to get to this point was completely worth it, and we have no regrets about the move. Every time we pull into the drive, or come down in the morning to put the kettle on, we can’t help but think how lucky we are to have created such a great space in a beautiful part of the world.’

sources: GoodHomes UK, August 2018