Beaming with pride

Starter homes don’t usually look like this one. CHRISSY HARRIS went to visit an eye-catching barn conversion, created by a talented young couple

- CHRISSY HARRIS

You can see the woodpecker holes in the framework of Tom Bedford and Polly Goodman’s kitchen. It’s a quirk of nature associated with the locally sourced, hand selected timber used to build this beautifully rustic home in the North Devon countryside.

Tom, 28, runs a hardwood flooring business and carefully chose every beam and pillar in this extraordinary barn conversion, near South Molton.

“I was trying to find trees in our local wood over there which were long dead – about 30 years dead – where all the sap had rotted off and you’re just left with the trunk,” says Tom, who designed and helped to construct his home, once a rusty old barn made from four bits of steel and corrugated iron. “I don’t like it where you can see sapwood on beams. It doesn’t matter – and structurally it’s perfectly fine – but it’s just me. I didn’t want the colour change.”

Local lad Tom has been surrounded by wood his whole life, taking over the running of the family’s well-established timber firm, UK Hardwoods, ten years ago.

While most of his school friends left South Molton for university and then the bright lights of London, Tom stayed true to his roots, working long hours to build his rural-based business.

Buying a barn to convert seemed the perfect way for Tom to showcase the natural material he was so passionate about - and to indulge his architectural side.

“Plus, I needed somewhere to live,” says Tom, downplaying it. “And I never fancied the idea of living in a town.”