Cottage has staying power

She started with a small home in Hornsea but her roving eye and lust for renovation projects means she has moved 10 times in the last 30 years. Her shortest stay in a house was six months and her longest seven years, but now at last she thinks she's found "the one".

Her Victorian cottage home in Foston-on the-Wolds, near Driffield, is pretty perfect, but its main allure is the location. "I like the house but I love the village," says Linda, who has a daughter and two grandsons. "It's very small but it is fabulous and has a great, friendly community and I think that's what will keep me here."

She bought the cottage in September 2007 and set about transforming it with her usual panache. Her renovations usually take just six weeks, but this one took five months and her first job was to get some natural light into the property.

She got rid of the tall conifers that were blocking light at the front of the house and bought a strip of land from a neighbour to create a large back garden with room for vegetable plots and hens.

Inside she replaced PVC windows with wood, switched fireplaces round, changed the opening into the study, altered the dog leg stairs to create a cupboard underneath and a large, impressive hall and then lost the fourth bedroom to make a large landing. Seagrass, her favourite floor covering, was laid in every room downstairs and the kitchen, which was fairly new but not to her taste, was treated to a fantastic budget revamp.

She replaced the cupboard doors on the base units with fresh ones from B&Q. The doors were 100 and were painted with Farrow and Ball and given new knobs. The wall cupboards were replaced with shelves. The light above the dining table is Ikea and cost 16. Her saving meant she could splash out on some hand-painted tiles.

"You don't have to spend a fortune. The kitchen doors were the cheapest B&Q had and although they said I wouldn't be able to paint them I knew that I could," says Linda, who also replaced all the rough pine internal doors with B&Q's oak veneered versions, which she painted.

Her favourite hunting ground for furniture is sales rooms and auctions

and she'll often buy brown wood pieces to paint.

The fabrics in the house reflect her love of country style and designs from Lewis and Wood, Andrew Martin and Laura Ashley. Most of the the soft furnishings are made by Adli Mashaley, who is based in nearby Nafferton.

Linda met him when she was on holiday in Dubai in 1999. They launched a branch of Clive Christian kitchens, there before moving back to East Yorkshire.

Although they are no longer a couple, they are great friends and often work together sourcing fabrics – and designing everything from drapes and blinds to headboards, sofa covers and quilts.

"We've worked on everything from a single blind for a customer on a budget to whole manor house and a pub. I'm officially retired but it's something I enjoy doing," says Linda, who had her own pre-fabricated buildings business.

Egyptian-born Adli's talent for sewing only surfaced when a friend was told she would have to wait weeks for her soft furnishings to be made up. He agreed to do them for her. He was taught how to sew by his mother, who was a fashion designer.

Linda, says: "I was amazed. I'd known him 10 years before I realised he had this incredible talent. He can make anything."

Helping Adli's clients and revamping buy-to-lets and holiday cottages feeds her love of property renovation and she's just finished her own home off with a picket fence.

"I'm happy with the house," she says. "And I've finally found somewhere I want to stay."

LINDA'S USEFUL NUMBERS

Adli Mashaley Soft Furnishings, Nafferton, Driffield tel: 01377 254875; email m.adlimashaley@

btinternet.com

Dee, Atkinson and Harrison auction rooms, Driffield, for furniture. Tel: 01377 538070

Country Tile Designs in Frome, Somerset for hand-painted tiles. Tel: 01373 471415

Oswaldtwistle Mills at Lightwater Valley for fabrics Tel: 01765 634519, www.lightwatervalley.co.uk

Ivy House glass in Driffield for glass and stained glass. Tel: 01377 257892.

Walton's Mill, Tower Street, Harrogate, for fabric. Tel: 01423 520980

Laura Ashley for wallpaper and fabrics www.lauraashley.com

Brooke Ceramics in Hull for bathroom and sanitary ware 01482 585888

YP MAG 1/5/10