House that talked to me

12:20pm Monday 1st December 2008

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WHEN part of a farm came on the market a couple saw an opportunity for the modern life rather than the Good Life.

Carlo and Julie Fanciullacci bought the plot and lived in the small farm bungalow that came with it for a year. Then they began to create one of the most striking new homes in the area.

Planning permission was granted for the scheme which involved demolishing the bungalow at Charlton Marshall and creating Dairy Farm Lodge, a superb modern five-bedroom home, in its place.

To create Dairy Farm Lodge they moved out of the bungalow and made a caravan their home for more than three months.

They survived various project problems along the way and even escaped unhurt when a runaway tractor demolished half their caravan when it crashed through a hedge and right through their bedroom.

Carlo said: “Luckily Julie was walking the dogs at the time and I had just walked out of the caravan to deliver some keys. It was a pure accident but it left us a bit shaky.”

Julie said: “We were also left homeless but eventually the insurers provided us with a cottage to stay in over the winter.”

Meanwhile Carlo was acting as project manager for their new home which was slowly taking form on a gentle rise overlooking the Stour Valley.

He said: “It was a wonderful job for me. My career involved long major IT projects in offices, so to get outside with these views and actually be working for myself was wonderful.”

The couple used recommended craftsmen to create their new home from its block and beam base to its innovative zinc roof.

Carlo said: “Perhaps one of the most striking aspects of our new house is its walls.

“They are made of nine-inch thermolite blocks wrapped in an insulation jacket which makes the house very warm which is clearly important for fuel bills.”

With the structure mostly complete Julie then turned her attention to the interior which she said ‘largely evolved’.

She added: “The house just talked to me. You look at each room and you kind of work with it rather than try and fit your ideas in to it.

“One aspect of the house was thought of well before it was completed and it involved using Tuscan red bricks for a fireplace wall in the family room area and it works really well because it helps to give the room a warmth.

It would have been all too easy to just continue the modern theme of white, but by breaking it up a bit you help to give the house some character.”

Carlo said: “This was a project that we took on as something we could do together rather than go to work in an office.

“We are now looking for our next project which will probably be a modern house again, possibly as a barn conversion and hopefully with the same designer, Tony Holt, who has been brilliant.”

Julie said: “We are looking at the New Forest because that is where we are from and we want to move back to the area.”