A warm welcome

Louise Clark and Adam Graham's idyllic countryside bungalow is the perfect setting for a cosy Christmas

- WORDS KAREN WILSON | PHOTOGRAPHY KATIE LEE

WHY DID YOU MOVE? We're not really planners and tend to do things off the cuff, so when Adam came across this five-bedroom bungalow in Northumberland, we viewed it on a whim. Our four-bedroom house on a cul-de-sac in Gateshead wasn't even on the market but we'd recently stayed in a cottage in the Northumberland countryside and had loved waking up surrounded by nature.

The setting was beautiful but seemed so remote, even though it's only five miles from the nearest town. It's accessed down a little track and all you could hear was running water from a nearby stream. Inside wasn’t so idyllic. The old kitchen was falling to bits, it had a blue bathroom with Jacuzzi and there were red carpets everywhere, but we were up for the challenge.