COMING HOME

Following her country dream and restoring a neglected cottage has been a true labour of love for Gayle Scott

- SHARON PARSONS

Sitting room

The oak 'Hobbit' door leads from the entrance hall to the cosy sitting room with its timeworn beams and huge inglenook fireplace. Walls painted in Earthborn's Flutterby. Gayle found the coffee table on eBay and upcycled it by sanding down, then finishing with an opaque paint wash. Sofa, Sofa.com

Sitting room

Gayle designed the simple ironwork banisters herself and had them made by a travelling blacksmith. Warm textiles add comfort and texture. Carpet in Seaweed, Victoria Carpets. Sheepskin rug, Neptune

From the moment Gayle Scott walked through 'the Hobbit door' in the 17th-century Northamptonshire cottage she and husband Paul came to view two years' ago, she was sold. 'The door has been here since the house was built and seemed to sum up everything I wanted in an old property - character, history and permanence,' she explains. 'We'd spent years living in a 1980s house in a busy new town, and I'd always dreamed of living in a place like this, but thought we'd have to wait until we both retired to make the move.'

Fate, however, works in strange ways, and when the cottage came up for sale - right next door to Paul's parents, in the village where he'd grown up - they decided to view it. 'Paul is more practical than me,' says Gayle, 'and was thinking about whether it ticked all the boxes. Then as he began to walk around, he said: "I can really see us living here..." I've never been so happy!'