Heart Home magazine Issue 12 - June 2014 | Page 19

“As it is not listed,
builder after builder
told us to knock it down
and start again but we
felt really strongly that
we should restore it”

With the cottage being in a poor state
structurally, Louisa and Dan had a long road
ahead of them in order to make the property
liveable, let alone homely. But where others
may have been tempted to save on the sweat and
tears by starting again from scratch, the couple
were determined to restore rather than replace.
“We totally gutted the old part of the cottage and
reinforced the entire structure with steel to keep
it standing,” explains Louisa. “As it is not listed,
builder after builder told us to knock it down
and start again but we felt really strongly that
we should restore it. The little cottage has stood
there for well over 300 years so it would have
been awful to knock it down.”
With Dan away serving in the Army much of the
time, Louisa was left to face obstacles, juggle her
day job at West Egg and be mindful of sticking
to the budget for the renovation. “The budget
we had was £8,000, but we blew through that
at a horrendous rate and the entire project cost
around £28,000,” she admits. “But we hadn’t, and
couldn’t have anticipated having to reinforce
the entire house with steelwork. It was pretty
devastating at the time especially as Dan was in
Afghanistan and I was trying to renovate and
run a business at the same time.”

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