SUFFOLK COTTAGE
Julie and David Thompson knew that with their children grown, they could follow their hearts to the countryside and find a forever home for Christmas and beyond
FEATURE AND STYLING NAOMI TURNER ADDITIONAL STYLING REBECCA LOVATT
Having spent her teenage years in abeautiful but very quiet Suffolk village, the last thing Julie Thompson wanted for her own children was for them to feel cut off from their school friends and reliant on their parents to ferry them around. So when she and her husband David were expecting the first of their three children, they left London to raise their family not in their dream home of acountry cottage, but in acontemporary house in bustling Ipswich. ‘We have such precious memories of that time, so many happy Christmases were spent there,’ says Julie, ‘but David and Iboth knew that as soon as our sons grew up and were ready to move out, we’d be free to follow our hearts and head to the countryside.’
After so many years dreaming about the move, the search for their ideal nest was not something the pair took lightly. ‘Character was amust have,’ explains Julie. ‘We wanted an old property with exposed beams and brickwork, original walls and floors, along with abigger garden than our townhouse. But at the top of the list for both of us was aview: we both craved an outlook that would ground us in the environment.’
The couple spent four years looking at houses, but nothing felt right until their estate agent told them about this place, in July 2020. Julie recalls: ‘Our agent said, “When you’re standing at the kitchen sink, don’t be surprised if you see deer wandering past.” He wasn’t wrong, and this proved to be the house we’d been searching for all those years.’
The Thompsons were fortunate to move in during abrief window in the first lockdown, and extra lucky in that the previous owner had taken care of the Grade II listed cottage’s 400-yearold bones; the rooms just needed a few repairs here and there, and alittle work to bring them more in line with the couple’s taste. ‘It was amore colourful house previously,’ Julie recalls, ‘with fuchsia pink walls in one room and darker shades in others, and there was alot of dark wood. We decided to lighten it up with neutral walls, to replace heavy drapes that had been kindly left behind with blinds in pretty, country fabrics, and old carpets with fresh neutral ones.’
