Wealden Times | WT260 | January 2024 | Good Living Supplement inside

This page: A dramatically dark corridor connects to the light-filled
atrium. This large, uncluttered space has been made to feel welcoming
with warm and natural finishes, textures and houseplants
despite the grey kitchen units.
“We made the kitchen ourselves
from birch plywood. It’s laminated
with a high-tech material called
Fenix. It’s brilliant stuff, resistant
to finger marks, and scratches can
just come out with a finger rub.”
Beyond the kitchen there’s a stripy
glimpse of the striking metal stair
rails that lead up to the mezzanine.
“We were going to have wooden
stairs,” Emma says, “but couldn’t
get the wood during Covid. The
only thing that was available was
steel, so we spray painted it deep
plum and it became a feature.”
The addition of the mezzanine
meant that the family were able to
live in this building while the barn
was converted, sleeping upstairs on
the new floor. “The other side of the
house was boarded up, so we lived
entirely in this side – and compared
to the mobile home it felt enormous,”
laughs Emma. “We moved into
the modern barn extension in the
summer of 2020 and built some
sleeping pods within the mezzanine.
It was self-contained, and with the
bedrooms upstairs this was really all
that we needed. We opened up the
glass link at the beginning of the year
and now have five bathrooms – a wet
room, guest bathroom and three en
suites.” All very much appreciated.
Running from wall-to-wall
through the building is a polished
concrete floor. This helps to link
the two separate buildings into
one, spanning from the new
barn to the old listed barn.
Once the gigantic apple store
was removed from the barn, the
conversion was fairly straightforward.
The planners allowed them to
install big windows at either end
because, “It could be argued that
this would have been a wagon-way
originally and so would have been
left open,” says Emma. “We were
allowed to put in one stud wall,
but on the other side there aren’t
any windows, so it actually helps to
make it a mezzanine.” Being able to
see the whole structure also makes a
beautiful celebration of the building’s
integrity and original purpose.
Spacious and airy, this unenclosed
area is used mainly for storage and
features a long line of cupboards down
one end. “It’s just an Ikea wardrobe
– the Pax system,” says Emma, “but
we took sections out of the doors and
replaced them with rattan. Then Terry
put a surround in to make it look
more built-in. We always
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