Wealden Times | WT261 | February 2024 | Education Supplement inside

Previous pages & above: The open plan kitchen/living/dining area is a
wonderfully bright space thanks to several roof lights. Sian has cleverley
mixed luxury and budget with a beautiful book matched marble clad
wall next to a contemporary electric fireplace that she found on Wayfair
They say a builder’s house is never finished. And it’s
an adage that seems appropriate, if not entirely
applicable, to Sian and Steve Turner, whose
audacious new house was shuttling towards the finish
line when we visited them recently. The project, which
has taken about four years in total to complete, has
pushed boundaries of both the physical and emotional
kind in an ambitious build, full of drama and initiative.
The house itself was masterminded by husband and
father Steve who owns and runs his own construction firm
in Surrey. Steve has been working in the building trade
his whole life and is the definition of a self made man,
who after leaving school at 14 to become a plasterer’s
apprentice has worked his way up to running his own
successful building firm, taking on contracts throughout
some of the wealthiest areas of the south east. Success
however can come with a drawback, which is that
you’re often very, very busy. So busy in fact that Sian
couldn’t find Steve for the start of our interview. But
more importantly, meaning Steve was unable to give the
house the level of attention that he would have liked,
as Sian says, “It has mostly been done at weekends.”
The house itself is in the West End village of Esher,
which for those in the know is a highly desirable
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