Art And Craft

It has taken years but Claudia and Henrik Rasmussen’s hard work has turned a rundown house into a family home filled with inherited treasures and favourite finds

- Melanie Whitehouse

A crumbling house that was falling apart at the seams was not exactly what Claudia Rasmussen and her husband Henrik were hoping to find when they began house hunting in 2004. But there was something enchanting about the tatty property and its generous garden that appealed to the couple. ‘The house spoke to me,’ says Claudia. ‘We could see it needed a complete, top-to-toe renovation, but we felt we could take it on. We had no money back then, so we had to do everything ourselves.’

The couple moved into the house and began stripping it down and taking it back to basics. The previous owners had divided the property into two flats and moved the kitchen. Distressingly, they had also torn out the original painted wooden wall panels. ‘We found the remnants when we stripped the walls,’ says Claudia. ‘They’d probably used them as firewood. It was an awful shame.’