Homes and Gardens / Self-build

My Place: Sara and Gavin

By Jess Connett  Wednesday Jul 25, 2018

When Sara and Gavin Hunt moved to the pretty village of Iron Acton, on the north-east fringe of Bristol more than a decade ago, they hoped it would be for good. They settled into the slower pace of life, but when their family grew to include two boys, as well as Chewbacca the border terrier, their 300-year-old cottage near the church just couldn’t contain them any longer.

“After we had kids, we were squeezed,” Sara says, sitting at their enormous wooden dining table in their open plan ground floor. Oak beams cross the ceiling and support every wall, and an atrium soars three storeys, flooding the space with light. “We wanted a bigger house in the village but we just couldn’t afford it. Gavin’s dad had built his own home, so we’d always thought about it,” she continues.

From the road, Sara and Gavin’s self-build is in-keeping with the rest of Iron Acton’s village architecture

It was Gavin who found the building plot at the other end of the village, on their regular dog-walking circuit. “You couldn’t see in over the wall because of the trees and there was a piece of corrugated iron in the gateway,” Gavin says.

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“Then one day when I went past, in September 2014, the gates were open and I could see they were clearing the site. I approached the guys to see who owned the land and got straight on the phone to him. We asked if he wanted to sell and met up the following day.”

A side view shows how the couple’s architects added a huge skylight that floods the building with light

Less than two months later, the land was legally theirs – but at that point, they couldn’t do anything with it. “It was just a small parcel of land sitting there with no identity and no planning permission,” Sara says. “Our solicitor told us he thought we’d paid £20,000 too much for it, so it was a nerve-wracking time – but worth the risk.”

Sara, who works at Rolls Royce, and Gavin, who is a pilot, had to juggle building the house around their busy family life

The family continued living in their cottage and spent the winter watching Grand Designs to get inspiration for their new home. Knowing that overseeing the build wouldn’t fit around their full-time jobs and family life, they employed a firm to manage the project and were soon drawing up plans with an architect.

“Their first were about our lifestyle as a family, rather than our design ideas,” Gavin says. “They asked about our hobbies, how we used our home and where we saw ourselves in ten years when our kids were teenagers. We were future-proofing the house – what we’ve ended up with could be made flexible later on.”

The oak frame construction is visible in all the rooms of the house, including the master bedroom

After jumping through planning hoops, ground was finally broken in October 2016. “When the footprint went down, we looked at it thinking, ‘it’s way too small, what have we done?’ – but then when the oak frame went up, it looked far too big!” Gavin says.

The French oak frame was erected in just five days. “It went from flat concrete to the shape of a house,” Sara recalls. “That was the Grand Designs moment!” Gavin adds.

Light slices through the upstairs landing from the glass skylight 

In October 2017, the family moved in. “It took a while for it to feel like home and to get used to everything being so new,” Sara admits, but by Christmas they were completely settled, and even bought the 12-foot tree that they had dreamed of ever since they saw plans for the house.

Now, their pristine home has a lived-in feel, especially upstairs.

The view of the skylight from the upper landing

Crossing the landing, with views down onto Chewbacca lying prone on the earthy-toned tiles under the dining room table, and a high oak beam under the skylights engraved with the date the home was finished, you find the bathroom with its grand black-and-white tub, a spare double bedroom and Sara and Gavin’s room with its en-suite bathroom and dressing area.

All the rooms have soaring ceiling stretching up into the eaves, making the place feel light, bright and spacious.

The modern country kitchen matches the cottage feel of the oak-framed home

“We’re really glad we’ve done it. We’ve got no regrets,” Sara says as she looks around the clean lines of the kitchen, light streaming in through the generous windows.

“There were times when the builders were coming in every day and it didn’t quite feel like our house that we thought ‘have we done the right thing?’ – but we have. It’s like giving birth: you forget all the pain when you see the result.”

If you’d like your home to feature in a future My Place article, both online and in our print magazine, email jess@bristol247.com

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