French-style country house

Nikki Holden has out her ingenuity and energy into renovating her family's first period home.

‘We were really excited when we found this place,’ says Nikki Holden. ‘The location is perfect and I think it has the feeling of an old French house, which I love.’ Since Nikki, husband Simon and the children moved in, the house has been gradually transformed into a remarkably individual home. ‘But I didn’t get my own way on anything,’ says Simon, who is in the RAF. ‘Nikki has made most of the decisions without me.

'Unfortunately, within two weeks of moving in, I was deployed on a tour of duty,’ he continues, ‘leaving Nikki to start on the renovations. But one thing I did do before I set off was rip out all the old carpets from the downstairs rooms and the bedrooms. I then sanded all the floors to remove all those years of paint, stain and glue.’

Soon after Nikki waved him goodbye, it was time for her to get started. ‘I rid the house of the dated colour schemes, 1960s floor tiles, 1970s pink bedroom sinks and the growing population of mice that plagued our home and larder.

‘Our bedroom had fitted wardrobes,’ she continues, ‘that went from floor to ceiling. Some feet behind I noticed a bricked up fireplace. Before I knew what I was doing, I had ripped down the mirrored doors and was smashing my way through the wall to uncover an original feature. With the help of a neighbour, a large skip and plaster I had the fireplace looking very fine. And with a very productive trip to the local reclamation yard I found a wonderful period fire surround to finish the job, once I had stripped, sanded and painted it.’

‘When Simon came back, the hunt for a new kitchen was on,' Nikki recalls. 'It was then that we decided to remove a portion of the wall between the kitchen and utility room to open up the area before we laid an oak floor. A large oak beam needed to be erected and this was out of our league, so we hired a builder to transform the room.’

At the same time, Nikki and Simon decided to lay carpet in the bedrooms and reception rooms. ‘The floorboards looked great, but we found that the house was just too cold not to cover them,’ admits Nikki.

FEATURE NAOMI JONES STYLING SIAN WILLIAMS PHOTOGRAPHS BRENT DARBY
Featured in the January 2010 issue of Period Living