Understated luxury: a bronze Urban Front door 

What was the brief for Cuttle Brook Barn?
When we purchased Cuttle Brook Barn, it already had planning permission to create two four-bedroom dwellings. There were originally two barns: one double-height steel frame with a pitched corrugated metal roof and another flat-roofed barn that looked more like a stable block, with just a foot of space separating them.

We needed four bedrooms as we have three children but what was most important to us was that the Barn was breath taking and spacious. To make this a reality, we decided to create one home from the two barns, which meant reapplying for planning permission. This was an arduous process, and we didn’t receive planning permission until a year after the original decision date was due.

How did you meet the brief?
DP Architects’ David Parker drew up four sets of alternative layouts to connect the barns to make one home. The layout we chose with a few tweaks was one that we felt made the most of far-reaching views from the living area entrance, kitchen, lounge, and diner across the open countryside. We added a long wide hallway with three sets of sliding doors to connect the two barns. In the kitchen, we designed a large walk-in pantry disguised by kitchen cupboard doors to make it a hidden space. We set all the bedrooms across the back of the house adjacent to a large hedge that runs along the boundary. Using lots of glass was a design choice to capture the views and that led us to building the entire house in a contemporary style. This then spilled into the interior, although we do have a mix of contemporary with some traditional elements.