Raising the roof

A message on Instagram led to the successful and thoughtful reconfiguration of this barn conversion

- JULIET BENNING

In the middle of a miserable winter, Jojo Barr, founder of House Nine, looked at her Sussex barn project and realised it might be one of her greatest renovation challenges yet.

Jojo, who is also known for her podcast, The Ins & Outs, co-hosted with garden designer, Pollyanna Wilkinson, had been approached by one of her long-time Instagram followers, who was making a bid to move out of London, along with her husband and three young daughters.

‘They chose this secluded barn because of the large size of the plot. The land around it is really beautiful and there was room for the girls’ ponies in paddocks,’ Jojo explains. But while the couple were seduced by the plot itself, the barn building would need an imaginative overhaul before reaching its full potential.