CHRISTMAS PAST

Wendy and Dean Simpson have renovated a 300-year-old Georgian farmhouse to create a home fit for another century of stylish living

- Wendy and Dean Simpson

Living room Leather furniture, velvet fabrics, and sheepskins combine to create a cozy, texture-filled space.

Fireplace, from Creeton limestone by J Rotherham.

Stove, Esse.

Walls painted in Pavilion Gray, Farrow & Ball. Leather Chesterfield, velvet chair and footstool, Rose & Grey

Wendy and Dean Simpson are great hosts so Christmas is usually a string of celebrations in their home – apart from Christmas 2014 when the family of five was squashed into a tiny two-bedroom cottage as they waited to move into their current home, a gorgeous and spacious four-square Georgian farmhouse in a village outside Hull.

‘We hadn’t set out to move,’ explains Wendy. ‘We lived in a perfectly lovely new-build in a pleasant village. Dean was just idly looking at “dream homes” on the internet and there was this stunning Georgian farmhouse nearby that neither of us had ever seen, despite having lived in the area for years.’

The couple drove off to see if they could find it and failed. When they called the estate agents, they were shocked to hear it had been on the market for two years.