No.5
Once serving as a Victorian isolation hospital and later turned into a pair of council houses, this grand old farmhouse has now been lovingly restored by Emily and Aaron Radford
HOME TRUTHS
THE PROPERTY Victorian farmhouse
ROOMS Kitchen-diner/living area, sitting room, playroom, study, cloakroom, four bedrooms, two bathrooms
LOCATION Staffordshire
Moving out of London for a rural lifestyle is a rite of passage for many young families. For Emily and Aaron Radford the move became a two-year passion project. Quitting their jobs within a day of each other, they purchased a period farmhouse with outbuildings on the Staffordshire/Shropshire borders that had seen service as an isolation hospital and then two council houses.
The farmhouse had been untouched for decades and some serious renovation was needed – plus bucket-loads of hard work and ingenuity. The couple purchased the building just a few months before the first Covid lockdown and faced construction teams and architects being abruptly furloughed, supply problems, price hikes and their chosen builders going into liquidation.
Luckily, Emily and Aaron were ready for the challenge. ‘I am very determined and err on the side of optimism,’ explains Emily. ‘We came into this with our eyes wide open – we’d had a full structural survey so we knew we had collapsed drains, water leaks, and mould and damp at the front of the house.’ But along the way they discovered doorways, fireplace openings, windows, timber flooring and more – including a fair idea of the original footprint.
‘As it had been two homes, we also had two of everything,’ she says, ‘two gas boilers, two kitchens and so on. Luckily, a building friend came to visit and told us that the building was absolutely sound.’
Before the builders arrived on site, the couple spent three months stripping the building back to bare bricks. ‘We slavishly removed layers of dank carpets, stained lino flooring, polystyrene ceiling tiles, miles of Anaglypta wallpaper, 1970s chipboard and ugly in-built furniture,’ says Emily. ‘I’ve never worked so physically hard in my life.’
Multiple trips to the local tip later,
