How it all started
We bought Ridge House in 2017, the year we got engaged, and moved in on a freezing December day. It was damp, cold, draughty, mouldy, and there was ice on the inside of the windows! But we were full of youthful enthusiasm and couldn’t wait to get started on our project: our forever home. Jonny’s mum had painstakingly cleaned the 1950s kitchen for us on the day we completed. But that evening, on finding that the asbestos backed oven was melting the 18 year old dishwasher next to it, we decided to rip it out instead and Jonny put his carpentry skills to good use and constructed a temporary plywood kitchen just in time for Christmas!
We lived like that for 3 years - a temporary woodburner with a back boiler providing some heating and hot water - and on the days we got in late we’d go to bed with hats on. Then in the spring of 2020 I quit my job, lockdown happened, I got pregnant, and we decided to crack on with the house! We demolished the leaky, draughty, rotten 1970s extension and Jonny dug out 250 tonnes of earth to make space for the new kitchen diner and two bedrooms above. In true Grand Designs style I was nail gunning shingles to the roof without knowing I was pregnant! We got the extension done in time for our daughter to be born by the fire on a freezing January day in 2021 and then got snowed in for a week.
Once she’d learnt to walk to we started work on the old part of the house, originally a school. Jonny built a temporary shed on the patio for the three of us to sleep in, and we put a temporary loo and bath in the utility room. Typically I got pregnant again, and we managed to finish the old half of the house just in time for our son to be born, also at home, in spring 2023.
A (nearly) finished house, a family of four, done and dusted. What more could we want? But of course, it’s the process we enjoy (are addicted to?) and we are now embarking on our next project…
Ridge House is a very special place to us. Most of what you see around you had been hand made by Jonny, from the kitchen to the table and benches, the oak light mounts to the window cills and copper loo roll holders. We’ve poured blood sweat and tears into this house, and created what we think is a very special place. Take in the views, pause for a while, don’t get cross at the owl for keeping you up at night. Go outside on a clear night and look at the stars. They are amazing. Take a little piece of Ridge House home with you. We love sharing this special place with people. We hope your stay here fills you up with whatever you need, rest, rejuvenation, recalibration. And we hope to see you again soon.