It's neutral but really warm and cosy too'

A love of wooden furniture, natural materials, and plenty of layered pale tones has helped Kelly Farrar-Smith create a rustic modern-country look for her home

- Kelly Farrar-Smith

Feeling hemmed-in in her 1960s semi on an estate in the market town of Ramsbottom, Greater Manchester, Kelly Farrar-Smith started looking further afield.

‘We were totally overlooked, in every direction,’ she says. ‘I couldn’t step out the back door without someone seeing me, and it was getting to me.’

After persuading her husband that it would make sense to start searching nearer to her family in Barnoldswick, 45 minutes away in Lancashire, the couple started looking seriously. ‘It took around two years in the end to find this property, although for most of it we were searching near our old house,’ explains Kelly. ‘We went through plenty of places on Rightmove, did some drive-bys, and viewed about four or five, but this property stood out. It was on a large plot overlooking fields, with a private garden and drive. The house itself also has lots of space, and it’s built into a hill, so on one side it looks like a dormer bungalow, and on the other a three-storey house.’