Wealden Times | WT188 | October 2017 | Kitchen & Bathroom supplement inside

Above: Neatly arranged boats line the ascent to the first floor
Left: A painting of Hastings by the late Anne-Catherine Phillips
takes pride of place at the top of the stairs
literally holding the building up. “Next door was the feed
store,” he continues. “We did look at that too, as both
buildings came on sale at the same time and we were the first
buyers. So we had the choice of either, but this conversion
had a layout that suited our needs with the potential to use
the double garage as a workspace. Then unfortunately our
buyer’s house sale fell through and he apologised for being
unable to complete. We took the house off the market and,
a year later, the buyer approached us again and eventually
bought it.” The farm building was still not sold though and,
having finally found a buyer for their house “and with more
negotiating power, we were suddenly up and running again.”
Moving wasn’t easy, as they had already managed to
accumulate a large collection of treasures and delicate models,
but the advantage was that they could move straight in and had
no structural work to do at all. “We revamped the kitchen,”
says Sue. “We kept the original wooden cupboards – somehow
it’s a shame to paint over natural wood, but we’ve repainted the
walls and added many other touches.” She points to a petite
pale blue kitchen cabinet, given to them by an elderly friend,
which fits perfectly into a tiny space opposite the iconic,
original Habitat dining table, complete with ‘Pantone’ place
105 wealdentimes.co.uk