Country Homes & Interiors November 2021

The five crumbling steps up to my front door are currently being replaced (thank goodness; I’ve been worried about our postman’s ankles). It’s not a big project but choosing the design (bullnose, to suit our Edwardian house), sourcing the stone (soft grey Yorkstone) and finding a builder to do the job (thanks, Stephen), has taken time and brain space. Which is why I’m always in awe of the dedication that’s been put into renovating and decorating the houses we choose to feature. I love reading the homeowners’ stories and this month’s are full of surprises, from the friends who designed a house together to the couple restoring the barn conversion they first lived in as newlyweds. Take a look, from page 18. Now the days are getting darker and colder, we’re…

Things that make us happy… “SHARING LAUGHTER AND MELTING MARSHMALLOW MOMENTS AROUND THE BONFIRE BENEATH THE STARS”…

For as far back as Georgina Copeland can remember, she and interior designer Stephanie Dunning of Dunning & Everard (dunningandeverard.com) have been friends. Growing up in neighbouring villages, the two women both had fathers who were united in their passion for sailing. ‘She’s helped me with the interior design of every house I’ve ever owned, but this is the one I hope I’ll be living in forever,’ says Georgina. ‘Stephanie is seriously good at what she does. I love her innate style, our tastes very much coincide, but she’s capable of adapting to whatever somebody wants.’ Moving from a smaller house in Hampshire, Georgina was attracted by the remarkable position of a rundown holiday house close to the village of Beaulieu in the New Forest. ‘We think the original house on…

CH&I MODERN Country CLASSIC Georgina’s style tip… INTRODUCE ACCESSORIES IN TALL AND STAGGERED HEIGHTS TO CREATE AN INTERESTING SENSE OF SCALE…

AT HOME WITH Owners Zoe and Geoff Sayers, who moved to the barn in 2000. They now live in the main farmhouse and run the organic dairy farm. They have three children: Plum, 17, Charlie, 13, and Monty, 11. House Ivy Cove is a rustic two-bedroom barn, first converted by Geoff’s mother. Originally an animal shelter with a tin roof, this idyllic barn on the south Devon coast has served the Sayers family since the 1950s. It had become a camping place and a setting for big family parties, until Zoe Sayers’ mother-in-law converted it in the 1990s. It became Zoe and her husband Geoff’s first home as a newly married couple when they moved back to the family farm 20 years ago. ‘It was really, really rustic,’ says Zoe. ‘There was no…

CH&I MODERN Country CLASSIC Zoe’s style tip… CREATE A COSY RUSTIC SCHEME WITH A FOCAL POINT FIRE, RAW MATERIALS AND SINK-INTO FURNITURE…