How do you modernise a home without making it feel modern? This farmhouse renovation is a stunning case study

This is the latest instalment of The Inside Story, Wallpaper’s series spotlighting intriguing, innovative and industry-leading interior design.

Jobe Burns is not just a designer, he's also a sculptor. In his renovation of a 300-year-old farmhouse in the West Country of England, that dual identity is felt – this is a home with an artist’s touch. The project began with a chance encounter at Burns' first sculpture exhibition, which led to the client commissioning him to design their home.

The building was groaning with heritage – the challenge for Burns was to preserve this essence while modernising it, or, as the designer puts it, ‘grounding something contemporary in a long, quiet history’.

It was never going to be a quick fix. The whole project took four-and-a-half years, during which time, Burns says, the house ‘became a kind of studio for [him] – four years of slow work, listening to the building, understanding its needs’.

The first nine months were dedicated solely to stabilising the aged structure. Centuries of warping and settling had left no wall, floor or ceiling level, necessitating custom everything, from cabinetry and windows to doors and brickwork. The renovation revealed a lot of surprises, including two brick-arched rooms which lay behind a blocked doorway – leading Burns to reframe the project not as a redesign, but as a process of ‘uncovering what was already there’. ‘If we’d knocked it down and rebuilt it, we would’ve saved about two years,’ he says, ‘but where’s the fun in that?’

When it comes to interiors, Burns has maintained a thread of moody, jewel-toned calm while allowing each room its own identity through subtle variations in material and colour. The kitchen and dining areas are light and relaxed, with off-white walls and layered timber. Meanwhile the bathroom – clad in terracotta, brass and marble – and an ‘in-between’ room painted entirely black and containing only a fireplace and a piano, feel more earthy and meditative.

Tactility and materiality are everywhere: soft corners, rounded window reveals, sculpted plaster skirting boards, lime washed walls, aged timber, polished plaster, exposed stone. Though all new, these details evoke the nobbly charm of an English farmhouse.

Original elements have been preserved wherever possible – doors, floors, oak beams – while materials that couldn’t be reused were repurposed. Old roof tiles now form the base of a fireplace, dead trees from the garden have become tables and shelves, and bricks for new extensions were sourced from a demolished farmhouse nearby.

Interestingly, Burns opted out of smart home technology in favour of manual electrics and plumbing – a decision that, the designer says, encourages the ‘tactile ritual’ of daily life and a return to a slower, more deliberate pace.

The result is a kind of architectural Frankenstein – the original home de- and re-constructed to form a time capsule that is, confusingly, modern.