This lovely York farmhouse renovation was a young couple's labour of love

Laura Greenhalgh and her husband, Edward, proved they were more than up to these challenges and more when they madeover their home, a former farmhouse in a glorious spot near York, just outside the North York Moors National Park.

Laura spent hours chipping away at one particular wall to expose the original limestone, but it was worth it, as it now makes an impressive feature wall in the kitchen-diner. “It was definitely a labour of love,” she says. “It was previously an external wall and there was green render all over it, and on top of that, wood cladding.

“When I first started thinking about design ideas, I remember looking at the outside wall, and looking at that wall, and thinking, I really hope it’s salvageable under there.”

As it happened, some of it did need rebuilding. Laura’s Dad, Neil, took on that task, managing to tie it all in perfectly. “Now, you can’t even tell that bit is new,” she says.

In February, Laura, who works as a draughtsman at a structural steel engineering company, and Edward, a Porsche salesman, finally moved in, along with their one-year-old daughter Honey, and their dogs Teddy and Bunny.

Their previous house was a newbuild on an estate. They had lived there for two years and could see the farmhouse from the upstairs windows.

Laura’s parents, Kimberly and Neil, are their next-door neighbours, after buying the farmhouse and surrounding land in 2019, living there themselves while they converted the granary barn into their own home. Then Laura, Edward and Honey lived with them for 11 months while the farmhouse was renovated.

“Originally, this house was down the road and it was knocked down and rebuilt where it is now in the 1800s,” Laura says, adding that it had been occupied by one farming family since 1733.

Although she and Edward did not initially plan to buy the house from her parents, she did appreciate its proportions and setting.

“I just thought it was beautiful,” she says. “The double-front, and the stone. I could see the potential. And the surroundings - it’s not far from town but you feel as if you are secluded.”

Then the pandemic brought about a rethink for the couple, as it did for so many people. Laura says: “We were going to get married, but we had to cancel our wedding. But it worked out because the money we had saved, we put towards buying the house.”

They finally got married in May last year, in a tiny registry office ceremony, which was perfect, says Laura, not least because they were already knee-deep into the renovation.

“We gutted the whole house, took out all the carpets, stripped all the wallpaper, took up all the floors downstairs, knocked down a few walls, installed steel beams where necessary, rebuilt a new floor level and installed underfloor heating,” she says.

There were more major changes, too. “We removed the oil heating system and put in a more sustainable, renewable source - we have used an air source heat pump. It’s had a full rewire and been fully insulated, every single wall has been reboarded and plastered. There is an awful lot of work gone into it.

“The whole thing was a challenge. My husband and I had never done anything like this before. My Dad is a builder so he was a massive source of information and advice. I handled the whole design side, and every aspect of this house was designed by me, and then my Dad gave advice on how to make that become reality.”

Downstairs is a large open-plan kitchen-diner, a hall with a boot room/utility and toilet off (the hall floor tiles are from The Tile Company) and two front rooms. Originally, the house had five bedrooms but now there are three, one with ensuite. They moved the staircase – yet another massive change – and that now occupies space that had been a bedroom, and they also converted another bedroom into a positively palatial bathroom, complete with a roll-top Burlington bath. This is one of her favourite rooms (the kitchen is up there, too), even though she was warned that it was not a suitable bathroom space because of the ceiling height and beams. “I envisaged it and I had to do it,” she says.

The three-legged milking stool beside the bath was found on the farm, and the cabinet is a hand-me-down from her Mum. Laura prefers an eclectic mix of furniture and furnishings, and prefers to inherit family pieces and buy secondhand, often from Facebook Marketplace, although on the high street she likes Zara Home and HomeSense.

In the kitchen, the cabinets are from Howdens with handles from Yesterhome. The worktops and flooring are laminate - temporary compromises to change later.

There is a sliding door, from Howdens, through to the living room, and Laura bought the mechanism for it from Amazon. “I didn’t want it to be massively open plan,” she says. “I thought a sliding door was a nice way of closing off the living room if you want it to feel a bit more cosy and open if you want more flow through.”

The dining room table, which belonged to her parents, has had a brilliant makeover by Laura. She shares how she did this, and other projects such as the table she and her Dad made, on her Instagram Reels and Tik-Tok, where she has 100K followers.

Honey’s room is finished but some rooms still need attention - they are using plastic boxes as side tables in their own bedroom.

“It’s our forever home, that’s why we are taking a long time to do it, and I want to make sure that everything we put in the house will stand the test of time and will be things that we will love forever,” she says.

“I can’t even put it into words. I absolutely love living here and I feel so at home. I’m not even bothered about going on holiday because I just love being at home.”

Find out more about the renovation and Laura’s upcycling and design ideas on Instagram @laurahome_