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Homes Ted Martin’s timber frame house sits majestically and sympathetically in the Wiltshire countryside

A grand

design You don’t have to be a minimalist to live in a modern house, as antiques lover Ted Martin proves in her timber frame home in the Wiltshire countryside Feature Rosanna Morris Photographs Jake Eastham

The essentials the owner Florist Ted Martin – who has an eponymous shop in Tisbury, Wiltshire – lives at Wood Cottage with her husband Nick, a manufacturing industry consultant. the property Wood Cottage is a new timber-framed extension (built by Phoenix Oak Framing) attached to a c1900 cottage. Downstairs in the new build, the open-plan living area comprises a large kitchen, dining area and sitting room.

A utility room and biomass boiler room can be accessed from the kitchen. The downstairs hallway leads to stairs to the master bedroom and connects to the original cottage, which has three further bedrooms and a snug.

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right The antique dining chairs have been updated by Ted to fit the house with new ‘Red Cheyenne’ fabric from Andrew Martin far right Ted collects small pieces of silver including tongs, sugar sifters, napkin rings, spoons and matchboxes, mostly presents from Nick, picked up over the years at antiques and bric-a-brac shops below As a florist, Ted’s house is always filled with fresh flowers, which work well with the exposed wood beams

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A closer look

Changing tables The vast windows in the openplan living space flood the interior with light. Old meets new with an adapted antique coffee table juxtaposed with a contemporary wood burner and L-shaped sofa

Ted and Nick felt that their dining table from their old house ‘looked wrong and too spindly’ here, so they amputated the legs to turn it into a coffee table.

‘It’s very dear to us and we’ve had some happy nights around it so we couldn’t bear to part with it,’ says Ted. They commissioned one of the craftsmen working on the build, Alex Argo, to make a new dining table for them (above).

ow and again passers-by pause to take photographs of florist Ted Martin’s home. And who could blame them? A striking structure of timber and glass tucked into a hill in the Wiltshire countryside, it is nothing if not conversationworthy. ‘I’ll look towards the road and see a car stopped and someone leaning out of the window with a camera,’ says Ted. ‘It’s flattering really.’

No doubt onlookers are beguiled not only by the intriguing building but by how it sits in its setting: off a windy country lane bordered by a copse of ancient oak trees to the north and hedged fields and meadows to the south. The gabled roofs and cladded walls rise majestically and sympathetically from the landscape.

Ted and Nick spent two years hunting for the right plot to build their home. ‘We decided to build an oak frame property because we wanted to live somewhere with a contemporary feel with lots of space and light,’ says Ted. The couple employed architect Melanie Latham, who specialises in renewable energy and conservation, to advise them on the most suitable land. In 2008, when the estate agents told them about a ramshackle, tarpaulin-covered, one-storey thatched cottage on the edge of a village with potential to develop, they jumped on it. ‘The cottage wasn’t particularly exciting and it had a hideous 1970s extension but the location was dreamy,’ says Ted. They decided to restore the cottage and keep it as a bedroom july 2014 H&A 47

Homes The industrial vintage light fitting in the kitchen is from Felix Lighting Specialists in Bath. The kitchen units were ready-made carcasses with plain doors that were sprayed with paint and fitted with Iroko wooden worktops. The couple’s carpenter, Jim Adams, constructed it for them

‘A muddy tangle of ivy and elder was transformed into an architectural vision in less than a year’ above The butcher’s block was originally from Smithfield market and was given to Ted by her friend, the explorer David HemplemanAdams, who had it languishing in his cellar above right the exposed timber struts come in handy for hanging things from right The suspended staircase in the hallway, which connects the new extension with the old cottage, was designed by the couple’s builders

pod and build a large extension for the living accommodation, incorporating lots of glass to make the most of the views. A giant oak tree on the land had to be felled to make room but they used its timber to build over a quarter of the house. Nick can happily identify each piece.

BUILDING BLOCKS A muddy tangle of ivy and elder was transformed into an architectural vision in less than a year.

Having found the site in May, completed in the autumn and secured planning permission by Christmas, Ted and Nick pushed ahead with construction the following spring and moved into the almost-finished property on the last day of November. The timber frame, built by a team of craftsmen in seven weeks, was craned in and put together like a jigsaw puzzle in three days. ‘It’s all pinned by oak pegs and there’s only one metal bolt holding the structure together,’ says Ted. When it came to furnishing the property, Ted, who frequents auctions and flea markets, was worried that her lifetime of assorted acquisitions wouldn’t look right in a new house. ‘We lived july 2014 H&A 49

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‘Ted kept the decor neutral, using a muted palette to allow the panorama through the windows to provide pops of colour’

this page, clockwise from top left A chaise longue in the master bedroom is upholstered in ‘Garbo’s Eye’ from Cecil Beaton Fabrics; the muffin dishes and sugar pots on display in the bedroom have been collected over the years and are mostly 19th century; a posy of sweet peas adds colour to the bathtub, from Wave Bathrooms in Salisbury; the vintage perfume bottles were given to Ted on her 21st birthday 50 H&A july 2014

Soft light spills into the master bedroom where Ted has gone for neutral tones and a sumptuous ‘Antoinette’ bed from Loaf. The throw is from The Biggest Blanket Company

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‘The dark wood tables and kitchen worktops offset the mass of light oak joists and struts to great effect’ in an 18th-century house previously, which had a cluttered country look with lots of Victorian mirrors and old pine furniture that would have looked rubbish in here.’ She skirted the problem by selling most of the furniture, keeping only her favourite pieces and working these in with contemporary fixtures and fittings, including a modern-style wood-burning stove and a corner sofa. Anything sentimental that she couldn’t bear to part with she simply adapted – a dining table became a coffee table and a Chesterfield sofa was recovered in a charcoal Andrew Martin fabric.

Ted kept the decor neutral, using a muted palette to allow the panorama through the windows to provide pops of colour. The dark wood tables and kitchen worktops offset the mass of light oak joists and struts to great effect.

‘I used lots of colour in our old house but here I’ve been more subtle,’ she says. ‘It’s been a steep learning curve and at times we floundered.’

The couple love the finished result, mainly because it’s a comfortable place to live but also because it makes a statement. The passing admirers are testament to that.

01747 871333; tedmartinflowers.co.uk 52 H&A july 2014

above Tucked in a corner of the garden that catches the last of the evening sun is a second terrace with a pergola and a wood-fired oven

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1 ‘Ikat Kelim’ cushion, £45, John Lewis 2 British industrial factory lighting, £260, Skinflint 3 Artificial bouquet, £44, MiaFleur 4 ‘Butcher Boy’ butcher’s block, £645, Loaf 5 ‘Garbo’s Eye’ fabric, £82 per m, Cecil Beaton Fabrics 6 ‘6140’ wood-burning stove, £1,756, Morsø 7 ‘Boni’ coffee table, from £930, Oficina Inglesa 8 1940s Mappin & Webb perfume bottle from W & L Antiques, £260, Alfies Antique Market ✤ For stockist information see page 159