A Country Cottage Escape- following your heart

I knew that the draw of the countryside would pull me back eventually.  I grew up in a village in Warwickshire and I absolutely loved it.  My fondest childhood memories are of walking my beloved golden labrador (Muffin) through the corn fields, collecting conkers on the village green after school, making toast on the Aga and the crackle of the open fire in winter.  I was always outdoors with my sisters making 'dens', mixing mud pies and climbing trees.  We had lots of pets (dogs, cats, ducks) and I knew that if I had a child of my own this was the life I wanted them to have too.


We were living in the suburbs when we had our son Harry, but were spending most weekends driving out to the countryside and I always felt a little bit sad when we returned home.  So we decided it was time for a change of scenery. The plan was to move to where I had grown up, but the high property prices meant a rural idyll was unlikely and also there was nothing on the market.  We were a bit disheartened but decided to start house hunting the following spring and hope that some miracle property would appear.


A couple of weeks later I spied a property that set my heart racing.  It was in Worcestershire though, so not an area we knew well at all. But on paper it did look perfect- pretty white cottage, rural setting, country views, a stream in the garden, it was old with beams and the crowning glory (for me) was that it had an Aga.  But best of all it was just about in budget!

We went to view it and absolutely loved it, although it needed loads of work.  Originally a two up two down 18th century worker's cottage it had been extended in the 1800s and later in the 1960s (thankfully sympathetically).  The inside had not been redecorated for 40 years and it lacked the luxury of heating but we loved it.  As a chartered surveyor I would say its unwise to buy an old cottage built into a hillside, with no damp proofing, a leaking roof, a 70 year old coal fired (yes coal!) Aga and antiquated electrics, but the potential was amazing. The fantastic views from pretty much every window made our mind up really.


We came back a week later for a second viewing with our son and my mum, and seeing Harry in the cottage and garden was all we needed as reassurance really.  The lovely lady who owned the cottage had lived there for 40 years, raised a family and reminded me of my grandma.  The cottage also had a lovely homely feel that made you want to put the kettle on and stay for another cup of tea.  After the viewing we stood at the gate of the barley field across the lane looking at the lone oak tree in its centre and it already felt strangely like home.  The only problem was we weren't planning on moving yet and hadn't even had our house valued.

It was all a bit of a whirlwind, as two weeks later our existing house was sold and our offer on the cottage was accepted, so that was that, we were moving and I was very excited (and slightly terrified).  Some thought we were a bit mad to take on such a big project but we figured we would never get the home that we ultimately wanted unless we bought something and did it up ourselves.  We were a bit worried about moving out into the sticks with a small child, to an area we didn't know, away from the support of our family and friends but just went with our hearts and decided to go for it.


So on a frosty morning in November 2014 we moved into the cottage. It looked a bit forlorn in the winter light (and the render had turned green!), and I did have one of those 'what have we done' moments. We had an exhausting day moving all of our belongings in, and annoyed the local farmer by blocking the lane with the removal van (oops). We put Harry to bed that night in his pink bedroom with its leaking roof and springy floor and settled down on our mattress on the floor of the end bedroom.  We lay awake in the pitch black (I had forgotten how dark it is with no street lights) and listened to the sound of mice scrabbling around in the attic.  The next morning Harry said he had seen a ghost in his room, we hoped this was a bad dream (luckily it was!).

We then slowly began to settle in to our new rural life. The first task was to keep the 70 year old coal fired Aga lit, involving riddling and filling it with fuel twice a day and taking the ash out (I learnt early on that wind and hot ash do not mix and its best to walk out of the door backwards!).  The thing I found hardest was how dark it was. The driveway is some distance from the cottage and I was leaving home in the dak carrying bags, a two year old and a torch in my mouth so I could see where I was going.  After falling flat on my face a couple of times the heels were ditched for flats.

But the weekends were just fantastic.  I spent lots of time in the garden with Harry (before it got too cold) collecting conkers and acorns and teaching him about the plants and animals we could see in the fields.  He loved being in the garden and paddlling in the stream in his wellies.  The sight of a tractor ploughing the field next to our cottage is any vehicle obsessed little boy's dream.  We found out quite quickly that we have a lot of wildlife in our garden- pheasants, deer and rabbits to name a few.  There is a little muntjac deer that comes into our garden most evenings who we have named Monty!

We did wonder how on earth the previous owners coped without proper heating for all those years. There were two open fires (the lighting of which required some skill we found), a couple of old 1960s storage heaters plus the Aga, which combined did not keep the cottage that warm.  Luckily it wasn't a cold winter and we had lots of hot water bottles.  The new heating system was one of the first things we had installed along with two wood burning stoves.


We have now lived in the cottage for 18 months and have had quite a few interesting moments along the way- the mice, a leaking septic tank (unpleasant), a hornet in the house, moles digging up the garden, an infestation of carpet moths, a flood in the kitchen where the rain came through the wall and wasps nests in the roof.  We generally spend the winter months trying to keep the cottage waterproof and the summer months trying to stop things from eating it.  The quality of life that we now have is well worth it though and Harry already has a 'den' in the garden.


Other than the more technical stuff we have done most of the work to the cottage ourselves and are becoming proficient DIYers and users of powertools (as well as experts in pest control).  Harry has a lovely redecorated bedroom and the 'ghost' has not made a reappearance. He is really excited about starting at the local nursery school in September, which has a lovely rural feel to it with its own chickens and vegetable patch.


If anyone is thinking of doing this kind of move but is hesitant about the upheaval of moving to a new area and not knowing anyone or juggling doing up a house with a small child (maybe with a job as well), I would say just follow your heart and go for it.  It has nearly killed us but my goodness its worth it. Golden labrador and ducks are next on the list!

Thanks for reading my first blog post. The next one will be about revamping our country kitchen in a cottage/vintage style on a limited budget.