Page 17 - Country Homes & Interiors (August 2019)

Corni sh Cottage

etting her teeth into a project of her own was
interior designer Jill Stein’s motivation for
renovating this charming Cornish escape. ‘I had
Gbeen working on five properties for a client and
wanted to do something for myself,’ she says. ‘I didn’t have the
budget for a sea-view property, so I went inland to a village I
know well. Walking around, I saw this house for sale. It was a wreck,
but at the right price, and it certainly ticked the “project” box.’
The deceptively large house was originally a Victorian barn and
cottage, with later additions. ‘It was an interesting-looking place,
as it was neglected and had been on the market for some time
– but that was the challenge for me,’ says Jill. ‘There was a garage
that I wanted to turn into a kitchen-diner. The central room in the
house was the kitchen, but I thought it would work better as

a living room. I also wanted to add another bedroom downstairs.’
Jill enlisted the help of her friend Tim Perring, a building
contractor. ‘I didn’t need to employ an architect, as Tim and
I worked out what to do by ourselves. We worked really well At home with...
together and it was great to change our minds as we went along.’
Injecting extra period character into the property was a must.
Owner Interior designer and
‘As it’s a cottage, I wanted it to have a cottage feel,’ says Jill. The
businesswoman Jill Stein. Jill has
ceilings were opened up in many of the rooms and beams three grown-up sons, Edward,
added to create drama. ‘Tim visited a reclamation yard and Jack and Charlie.
bought reclaimed beams that would make the house appear House Four-bedroom Victorian
older,’ says Jill. ‘This worked especially well in the kitchen-diner property comprising barns and
– the former garage. I knew the features had to look as if they a cottage with later extensions.
had been there for a long time. We removed plaster from some Jill bought the house in 2015.
of the walls as I wanted exposed stone – but it just didn’t work.’
Jill was able to put many of her other ideas into practice,
though. ‘I wanted to install a tiled floor, so we incorporated
reclaimed terracotta bricks to lay in the living room and kitchen.
We used wooden flooring throughout the rest of the house,
which has stood up to wear and tear, and we added wood-

clad walls and ceilings in various rooms to emphasise the rustic
look. I was keen to create a very traditional scheme rather than
a contemporary one. I also wanted to inject warm colours.’
A more challenging task was the living room. ‘We put a Velux
window in the ceiling to bring in more light but I didn’t like it,’
says Jill. ‘Not every room has to be flooded with light and I
wanted to create an atmosphere in this room where people
could gather for drinks. We built a window seat, which makes
the room more intimate, and provides plenty of space to sit. I
also installed a woodburner – most of the time we have cold
weather, and the design has to accommodate that, as well as
the few weeks of the year when the sun shines. I let out the house
as a holiday home, so I didn’t want it to be cold and clinical.
My aim was for people to walk in and feel cocooned.’
The structural work took a couple of years, but the interior
decor went smoothly and Jill is thrilled with the end result. ‘I love
the house. It’s such a great place – it’s looks so small from the
exterior, but when you go inside, it goes on forever.’

CouNTry HoMeS & INTerIorS 17