Kate Andrews and Jake Willmore took on an enormous renovation of a Georgian property, using salvaged finds and clever ideas to make it suitable for modern family life
FEATURE AND STYLING ALI LOVETT AND DEBI SIMPSON
SNUG
‘We haven’t changed much here yet apart from adding our existing pink velvet sofa,’ says Kate. Peach tones make the space feel warm and cosy.
HOME TRUTHS
THE PROPERTY AGeorgian Grade II-listed semi-detached house
ROOMS Sitting room, snug, dining room, kitchen, utility room/pantry, boot room, office, six bedrooms, four bathrooms, dressing room
LOCATION North Yorkshire
Kate and Jake lived in London for 15 years before taking the plunge and moving to North Yorkshire with their two children, Rafferty, now 10, and Ferdie, seven. ‘Our children were starting to get bigger and it made sense to move back towards where I grew up,’ says Kate, ‘I wanted my children to be able to play outside like I did, and be closer to my family as well. We looked at six properties before finding this one, and although it was much bigger than we needed, the location was perfect.’
Although initially the buying process went smoothly, the couple wisely chose to have a full structural survey done on the Grade II-listed property. ‘When the survey came back it was 42 pages long,’ remembers Kate, ‘and although it didn’t put me off, it made me negotiate hard with the sellers, who eventually agreed to reduce the agreed price.’ Also being Grade II-listed meant the couple had to apply for permission to change anything – even to drill a hole to rewire a light outside the front door.
The first thing they did after moving in was to paint over all the yellow walls with white paint to create a blank canvas. It then took around six months before any major building work began, with Kate’s brother-in-law, who is a joiner by trade (browsondesignandbuild.com) project managing. ‘There were so many tradespeople involved, all needing to be there in a certain order. We wouldn’t have known where to start without his help.’ One of the biggest shocks along the way was how messy and invasive rewiring was. ‘I thought a few wires would be fed through the walls but instead they were ripped apart and left in a mess,’ she says. I moved in with my sister, who lives locally, and popped back to keep an eye on the progress – there was always such a mess, with floorboards everywhere and I wondered if we’d ever get it to look nice. Something else I underestimated was the cost of lighting – when the electrician was here we went a bit mad with the lighting plan. Then I discovered how expensive wall lights are, plus paying the electrician to come back t
