… a little bit rock ‘n’ roll in Jo Wood’s off-grid home, where there is an urban edge to the interiors in this very rural setting
How did a self-confessed city lover end up living off-grid, drawing water from a well, and with no neighbours save the occasional sheep? Jo Wood asked herself that question every day in her first six months here. ‘It was horrific at first. Everything went wrong. Within days of moving in the generator had completely broken,’ she recalls. ‘I wondered what on earth I’d done.’
After living a rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle in cities all over the world with her former husband, Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood, the lure of the countryside eventually proved too great for Jo to resist. ‘I’ve been an organic girl since the Nineties,’ she says, and indeed, Jo is now CEO of her own organic beauty range. ‘One of my dreams was to live off- grid and when this house came up for sale, I thought if I don’t do it now, when will I ever? So I took the plunge and blindly went into it,’ she adds.
With help from some experienced off-gridders, Jo got the essentials sorted. She installed a new generator – and a back-up generator – and then began transforming the house.
Surprisingly, one of the things she liked on her first viewing was that the house was devoid of any features. ‘It was completely white inside – a total blank canvas,’ she explains. ‘I knew I could change it and give the house back its character. I love doing up houses and find it so exciting. My houses have all been so different, but I’ve learned somethi
