Pretty as a picture

With holes in the crumbling, bare plaster and paper hanging off the walls, it was difficult for most buyers to see that a beautiful home could rise from the devastation caused by a partial renovation.

So the Victorian terraced house, near Knaresborough, languished on the market until artist Laney Birkhead arrived and employed her talent for visualisation.

“It was a wreck. You had to dodge the holes in the floorboards in some places but it had a fantastic feel and it was it was big and I could see that it could be a lovely home,” says Laney.

She and husband Tim were looking for a bigger home to suit their growing, teenage sons but with prices close to the centre of Harrogate proving prohibitive they widened their search to Starbeck.

The house offered a fantastic amount of square footage and with some hard work and some clever decorating on a budget, the couple created the perfect home.

They began by re-doing the large living kitchen. An old range that was installed for decorative effect was replaced with a reconditioned 1950s Aga that was converted to gas.

Though expensive to run, it has been worth every penny. It’s a cooker, a “dog warmer” for spaniel Honey and terrier Lilly and a clothes dryer.

“This is the hub of the house and the Aga is the best thing we bought. It cooks beautifully and it actually saves us money because we got rid of the tumble dryer and use a clothes rack above the Aga instead. The only slight problem we had was when my son went to university and had to call asking how to work a conventional oven,” says Laney, who replaced the flimsy kitchen units with a mix of freestanding pine cupboards and shelves for an “eclectic and rustic look”.

The sink unit with brass taps was found via a small ad in the paper, the plate rack was made by a joiner and some of the cupboards were bought at auction along with a host of pine, internal doors.

The science cupboard in the hall was a present from a friend who rescued it from a school in Keighley.

In keeping with their love for recycling, the dining table is second-hand and bought from a nearby farm and the pew is from a redundant church.

The couple did much of the renovation work themselves, except the re-plastering which was done by a professional who worked round the original corbels, picture and dado rails and windows

Another period feature was discovered under piles of rubbish in the garage. The Arts and Crafts fireplace was covered in layers of white gloss paint but Tim managed to restore it to its former glory and it is now the focal point of the sitting room.

Upstairs, the first floor rooms were reconfigured to create one large bathroom from a shower room and separate loo. An enormous front bedroom was split into two. Laney has one half as her studio, which is full of paintings, etchings and her collagraph and carborundum prints.

She used her design skills to draw up plans for the loft space, which includes a minstrels gallery that allows light from the Velux windows to flood onto the once dark staircase. The second floor also has a shower room and a yoga and meditation room, as Tim is a yoga teacher.

Although their boys have flown the nest, they couple have no plans to downsize and thanks to a major lifestyle change, they are both working from home and utilising every inch of space.

Tim, who changed careers after a heart attack, is about to launch lessons from his yoga room. Laney, a former art lecturer, gave up her day job to become a full-time artist and printmaker and also offers tuition to GCSE and A level students along with printmaking workshops for fellow artists.

“It’s a great house for the workshops and everyone loves sitting round the table in the kitchen for lunch, which Tim makes,” says Laney, who gave the drab front and back doors distinctive aubergine paint.

Her brightly-coloured door is helpful to visitors on the North Yorkshire Open Studios tour, which starts next weekend and runs the weekend after, where artists and makers open their studios to the public. It acts as a sign, shouting “artist lives here”.

She is also displaying work by her friend, the hat and jewellery maker Barbara Cassell , and Harrogate-based ceramicist Anna Whitehouse. Laney’s own work, which sells online and at the Rapture Gallery, Harrogate, and Art in the Mill, Knaresborough, is becoming increasingly sought-after. For the last five years, most of it has been focussed on the meadow and woodland close to her house.

“I do a lot of my work outside and I go down to the meadow almost every day to capture it at different times in different light. There’s a lovely pond with bulrushes that features a lot.”

Her other major project is in the “secret” garden that sits at the back of the house across a stretch of private road.

“In the deeds it says that the only person who has a right to come down our road is the Sherriff of Knaresborough on horseback, “ laughs Laney.

Ins her shed-cum-workshop is an 1850s Britannia printing press made in Leeds that she rescued from an leaking, asbestos outbuilding at Harrogate College. #

It was a corroded pile of metal when she found it but she pulled it out and had it transported to Stockton, where specialist Bob Bewick restored it.

“It’s taken eight years to do and it was a bit of an effort to get it in the shed because it weighs 700 kilos, but I can’t wait to use it,” says Laney.

“It’s a piece of Yorkshire history, which I find very exciting.”

www.laneybirkhead.com

www.barbaracassell.co.uk

www.anna-whitehouse.co.uk

The North Yorkshire Open Studios events runs June 8 and 9 and June 15 and 16. More than 120 artists and makers are opening their studios to the public.

For more details and maps visit www.nyos.org.uk or tel: 01756 748529