Concept For Living magazine » Upstairs, downstairs

Upstairs, downstairs

Wednesday, February 24th, 2010

A converted granary mill in Telford offered one couple the space and peace they craved, while its traditional beams and brickwork provided them with an interior challenge – mellowing the mill’s innate masculine feel through clever décor choices.

I never thought it was an attractive house to look at, but both my son and David absolutely fell in love with it. I kept saying, “It’s a man’s house – with its bricks and oak – but once we started softening it up with furniture I began to love it, too.” As Dorothy Insley explains to Concept For Living how she, her husband, David, and son, Gregg came to live in the rustic converted granary mill they now call home, it’s not the usual property romance story, but then this isn’t a usual home.

Originally a collection of farm buildings – smithy, granary, stable and so on – the buildings were bought by a property developer, converted, and sold on. Dorothy, David, Gregg and Smudge the cat, bought their home, which is the converted granary mill, 18 months ago after David found the property online.

“David kept looking at it on the internet,” says Dorothy. “He was forever looking at it. And in the end I said, ‘Let’s go and see it.’ I thought it would just get it out of his system and he’d see bits he couldn’t live with, but when we came round, there was nothing wrong with it. From the pictures I thought it looked like a hanging gallows – with the bricks and the wood floors!”

This article can be read in Concept For Living issue 136.