SMALL SPACES CORNISH COTTAGE
Bought as a weekend bolthole, this bijou cottage is now a permanent home, and has transformed the lives of homeowners Nils Moeller and Madeleine Hutchinson
SITTING ROOM
The comfortable sitting room is zoned, with one end perfect for socialising and the other a quiet reading nook. Armchair, Graham and Green. Console table, Sweetpea & Willow
Nmake ils Moeller lived in west Cornwall as astudent, and it was the area he returned to when looking for aholiday home for himself and his wife, Madeleine Hutchinson. ‘We were looking for aplace to escape to at the weekends, but then everything changed when we started working from home during the pandemic.’ Spoiler: post-Covid, their bijou bolthole became apermanent escape to the country.
The cottage that won their hearts is apocket-sized stone building, recently extended to create atwo-bedroom home. ‘It’s the quintessential picture-book cottage on atiny road to atiny cove, surrounded by greenery,’ says Nils.
Located on the wild and remote Lizard Peninsula, the cottage may be modest but it has plenty of charm. When the couple first saw it, however, ‘a lot of things needed TLC,’ says Nils. They both work in publishing and, at the time, lived in London. As working and managing adistant renovation wasn’t possible, they asked local interior designer Nicola O’Mara (nicolaomara.com) to help them achieve their vision for the cottage. She also projectmanaged the building works, which included some new windows and doors, damp proofing, and areplacement kitchen and bathrooms. Yet the biggest job was the heating system. Nils and Madeleine installed an oil-fired boiler. When they found it noisy and intrusive, they changed to an air-source heat pump. Only one additional radiator and some extra insulation were needed. ‘And it’s been really quiet,’ says Madeleine.
Although keen to embrace modern technology, Nils and Madeleine wanted to focus on the heritage of the cottage. Taking the stone feature wall and the beautiful wooden staircase in the sitting room as cues, they chose subtle, neutral tones, with occasional splashes of colour and pattern.
Rather than trying to brighten the cottage-sized rooms uniformly to them look bigger, designer Nicola played with light and shade. She specified black units below the countertop in the kitchen and cream units above, which adds depth and asense of spaciousness to the rooms. The bathrooms contrast Farrow &Ball’s moody De Nimes paint on the walls with patterned tiling, bringing character to the compact spaces.
They also changed the layout of the bathrooms, adding slimline vanities and acute roll-top bath to make the most of the modest footprint.
‘Changing the layout was alow point, as the builders drilled for days
