Designing A Garden

STARTING A GARDEN FROM SCRATCH

Tips on how to avoid some of the pitfalls when creating a new garden.

Measure Up

Getting exact dimensions will ensure that everything fits in the garden. It will also help you calculate the quantities of materials you'll need, what plants to use and visualise their future dimensions.

Plot Underground Services

Measure and plot all underground services on the property like gas, water, power, sewage, telephone cables etc. Go to www.1100.Com.Au or call 1100 during business hours for more information.

Understand the Topography

Work out if there is a fall, identify the contours and where they end up. This will inform the way water will move around the site and how you can manipulate it.

Can you use the slope to your advantage, or do you need to create a level space?

Take Photos

Photograph everything - especially from inside the house. Consider how you want the garden to look from the various aspects indoors.

Photos give you an extra perspective on the 'borrowed landscape' - what's outside your block that you might want to use, but also highlights problem areas that you may want to screen out.

Track the Sun

Understanding light is critical to garden design. You need to determine where the sun rises and sets on your property. This will help you:

Choose plants that are happy in their intended aspect

Manipulate shade on the block using deciduous trees that allow warm winter sun and block out the harsher summer sun 

Know Your Soil

It's worth spending some time digging some spade-depth holes around the garden to check for rock and compaction. It's also worthwhile checking the pH and drainage of the soil. You can find more information on the fact sheet from the story - Know Your Soil.

Almost any soil can be improved with cultivation and the addition of organic matter, but it's best to start early and prepare the soil well before you are ready to plant.

For more information on improving soil, have a look at the story Making Perfect Vegie Soil.

To alter soil pH, see Jerry's story on pH Testing.

Keep it in Context

It's important to create a design that's in context with the architecture that it surrounds, but also the broader landscape. For example, if you are designing a garden for a modern house in a street with more traditional dwellings, you could use traditional materials in a more contemporary way.

MAIN GARDEN ELEMENTS

Once you've learnt more about the space you'll be creating your garden in, it's time to consider the main elements.

What do you want from your garden?

It may seem like an obvious question, but it's important to consider the roles you want your garden to play. Do you want areas for entertaining, spaces for the kids to play, areas to attract wildlife and birds or places to grow food?

Where will you position these areas?

The next step is to decide where these places will go.

How much time do you have/want to spend maintaining your garden?

If you work long hours, you might not want to spend every weekend mowing and weeding. Clever design can cut down the work required to keep your garden looking great.

CONSIDERATIONS FOR DESIGN Cars

The challenge is to create a driveway and parking space that allows enough room to be practical, but doesn't visually dominant dominate the garden design.

Tip: You might want to try blending ground surfaces to create flow through the garden such as creating the driveway off the main pedestrian path, making the focal point the path and therefore people, rather than cars.

Narrow Side Spaces

The narrow width and proximity to the neighbours often make narrow side spaces challenging, often just 'blocked out' with tall fences or walls or screening. This may actually make the area seem darker and more oppressive. An alternative is to choose plants that make the area seems lighter and more open. The idea is to create a buffer as opposed to a dense screen. This gives a sense of privacy to the space, whilst still allowing light in and without making the area feel closed in.

Tip: Try planting 2 layers of foliage - an underplanting of a foliage plant helps to visually widen the area and create a sense of space.

Sloping Ground

You may think that levelling the garden area is the only option, but there are other ways you can create useful spaces in the garden on sloping blocks.

Tip: Instead of terracing your entire garden and using a retaining wall, you could also try a broad series of wide lawn steps or garden steps to transition the levels closer to the house, connecting the house and garden and drawing people outside.

Large, Open, Empty Lawn

Open expanses of open lawn can be great when you want to kick a ball in the yard or play with the dog, but there are ways to create interest and function in a garden whilst still retaining space for play.

Tip: Try altering the lawn space to create separate areas, e.G. Tapering the lawn and creating a divide between one lawn space and another with garden beds.

Productive Spaces

If you are hoping to grow food in your garden, the placement of vegie beds is vital. Pick sunny and protected areas to establish a vegie garden.

Tip: You can still have fruit trees even if space is limited. Consider establishing a 'mini orchard' using grafted dwarf varieties of fruit trees. This will allow you to grow a variety of fruit in a limited space.

GARDENS FOR KIDS

When creating gardens for children to play in, it's important to remember that they are smaller! Consider scaling down plantings to keep the garden at 'kid level'. Kneel down and look at the garden from a child's point of view and make sure that there are areas of interest at this lower level.

GARDENS FOR DOGS

Dogs often like to run up and down the fence line, so establishing a 'dog race' or empty space between the fence line and garden beds, can save your plants from getting trampled.  

A bare area under the eaves that is protected from the rain and sun and allows a patch where dogs can cool down in summer is also worth considering.

Dogs also like vantage points in a garden, and elevated spaces can really add interest to the garden design for both you and your pets!

You can also discourage dogs from walking through sections of the garden such as herb and vegie beds by using bamboo stakes inserted into the ground to discourage them from walking through or sitting in the garden bed.

It's particularly important to remember that compost, poisonous plans and snail bait can all make dogs and children quite sick. Therefore, it's essential to keep all these substances isolated from kids and dogs.

GARDENS FOR BUSY PEOPLE

If you're doing long hours at work and don't want to have spend hours every weekend maintaining your garden, your design should take this into consideration:

1.You can still have a lawn without having to spend every weekend pushing a mower, but make sure you limit these areas and keep the lawn to areas where it is quick and easy to mow. Look for varieties of lawns that are suited to your area and require less maintenance.

2.Mulch can help keep weeds at bay and reduce the need to water as much.

3.Use plants that are suited to your local area. These will require less watering and maintenance.

4.Consider your surfaces – a pebble drive might look great, but will require a lot of maintenance to keep weed free and looking its best.

COURTYARD AND BALCONY GARDENS

Not everyone has a large area to garden in, and more and more, people are gardening in smaller spaces – including courtyards! But by applying a series of design principles and techniques, a small courtyard can been turned into a beautiful versatile space.

Using Mirrors

Mirrors can make the garden look twice its size. But more than that, it reflects autumn and winter sunlight into the garden, overcoming the problem of shade.

Division of Spaces

One of the best ways to get the most from your courtyard space is to divide it into different areas. When it comes to designing your courtyard garden, think about how you're going to use it the space. You might consider an outdoor dining area that is close to the kitchen and sitting area, so people can get to it really easily.

Surfaces

A further effective design element is the use of paving material. Smooth textures used in large pieces can help make a restricted space less 'busy'. Where you change to a different surface on the ground, a consistency of colour will help make a space less crowded.

Plantings

Try and choosing plants that will provide year-round interest. Consider especially, the use of evergreen plants to avoid your courtyard garden looking bare in winter.

The way in which plants are grouped can affect your courtyard design dramatically. By creating different height levels with your plants, you can create a sense of depth.

By keeping plant heights low, your garden can extend beyond your boundary fences. This concept of a 'borrowed landscape' can be an important one when you're designing a small space, so take into account the area beyond your courtyard when choosing your plants.

Pots on Balconies

Remember to consider the weight of plants in pots on balconies. When planting, you can limit loads and weights by filling the bottom section of pots with lighter materials such as coir or foam.

And remember…..

If you don't happen to get the garden quite right the first time, there's no harm in making changes! As families grow and change, you may find that the garden that worked so well for young children, isn't quite working for you in the same way! Got a disused cubby house in the back corner of the yard? Maybe it can be turned into a chicken coop! Trampoline not getting jumped on anymore? Maybe the frame can be used in the vegie garden and the mat used as a sun cover! Gardens, just like people, can change and adapt, and after all.....That's part of the joy of gardening! A garden is never truly finished!

..............Want more?

If you enjoyed this article, make sure to sign up to the Gardening Australia e-newsletter to have weekly gardening content delivered straight to your inbox!

  SIGN UP NOW

Posted 14 Jul 202314 Jul 2023Fri 14 Jul 2023 at 2:00am, updated 14 Jul 202314 Jul 2023Fri 14 Jul 2023 at 9:25am

A Home, An Office And A Park Demonstrate That Design Can Be Environmentally Conscious — And Look Good

Facing a future of climate change will demand drastic changes in the ways that we live. It will also require equivalent changes in the way we design.

The energy it takes to construct buildings and power them accounted for 37% of global carbon dioxide emissions in 2021, according to a status report issued by the United Nations Environment Program last year. Homes and businesses not only need to be more efficiently built, they need to be designed to withstand environmental extremes. In Los Angeles, where drought has been an existential challenge from the beginning, capturing water and planting more resilient landscapes are critical.

These are big problems. But they are not without solutions. In this portfolio, The Times presents three case studies — a residence, a construction method and a park — that provide a window into how designers are (and have been) preparing for climate change.

Reinventing the court apartment

One day, the ideal Los Angeles home will be an apartment.

The single-family home — no matter how "eco" — feeds sprawl and car-dependent transit. This has led some architects to revisit a form of housing that once defined L.A. But faded over time due to rising parking mandates: the court apartment.

Read more: Build less housing for cars and more for people. Two books on how the past can guide the future

Courts emerged early in the 20th century and generally consisted of modestly scaled apartments or bungalows laid out in a "U" around a shared garden courtyard. Pasadena's Bowen Court, completed in 1911, and Santa Monica's gracious Horatio West Court, designed by Modernist Irving Gill and completed in 1919, offered models of density that were pleasing, practical and inexpensive to build.

The concept is something Hawthorne-based Brooks + Scarpa Architects has resuscitated in fresh ways. In projects around L.A., the firm, which is led by Angela Brooks, Lawrence Scarpa and Jeff Huber, has produced a number of buildings that ditch the dreary double-load corridor of standard apartment buildings in favor of a single row of apartments arranged around a courtyard. This means every unit gets daylight and cross ventilation (reducing energy use) and all have direct access to the outdoors.

Angela Brooks and Lawrence Scarpa of Brooks + Scarpa in their Hawthorne studio. (Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

Last year, Brooks + Scarpa completed the 35-unit Rose Mixed-Use Apartments for Venice Community Housing, a building that provides housing to foster youths in transition. It's a building that addresses a pair of intersecting crises — housing and climate — and it does so in gracious ways.

The architects sunk the ground floor (which houses VCH's offices) partly below grade so the building doesn't loom over the neighborhood. Stacked over an elevated courtyard are three stories of units that all get breezy cross ventilation; the building is less than half a dozen blocks from the beach. Stormwater planters filter and hold rainwater along the building's flanks. There is also a hookup for a solar array on the roof (though panels have not yet been added).

Read more: The 'Sombrita' bus shade controversy obscures an important story about women and transit

Most significantly, the courtyard isn't some austere, blank space. The architects created stepped seating sheathed in IPE deck tiles (a type of wood flooring) that is punctuated by planters. Along the street-facing edge, they added three rows of stepped plantings (devised by landscape architect Tina Chee), which serves as a buffer between the courtyard and the street. "The stepped planters also allow us to get rid of guardrails," says Brooks, "which look very defensive."

Roof gardens — critically — help mitigate the heat island effect.

Other touches, such as energy-saving appliances and upgraded insulation, also help conserve. According to estimates calculated by the architects for the American Institute of Architects' Committee on the Environment, the building is positioned to consume 71% less energy than benchmark code.

The Rose Apartments were designed as supportive housing and, therefore, the individual units, most of which are studios, are small — about 360 square feet. But in drawing inspiration from L.A.'s old courts, Brooks + Scarpa offer an attractive model for what density and climate-conscious design might look like in Los Angeles. The future doesn't have to be dour, block-long podium apartments; it can be sunlight and fresh air.

"Back in the 1980s, it was called regionalism," Brooks says. "It meant you design the building to fit the climate of the region. ... I feel like the world has finally caught up with that idea."

Replacing concrete with wood

From a distance, the building under construction at 843 N. Spring St. In Chinatown might seem like many of the commercial structures popping up around L.A.: four stories of open-plan offices rise above ground-level retail spaces that one day will house restaurants and shops. But move in closer and you'll find some surprising details‚ including a ground-level arcade dotted with rough tree ferns and a rooftop patio planted with foxtail agaves and purpletop vervain. What is most notable, however, is wood — which is everywhere.

Read more: Design team chosen for memorial to victims of L.A.'s Chinese Massacre of 1871

Look up and you'll find that the building's floor plates are partly supported by broad panels of mass timber, the generic term used to describe a variety of industrial, engineered woods. 843 N. Spring is part of a wave of such structures springing up around the United States. In Milwaukee, you can find a new 25-story mass timber residential tower, and a forestry college in Oregon now inhabits a pair of graceful mass timber buildings.

It may seem counterintuitive, but mass timber can match or exceed the strength of concrete and steel. Also counterintuitive: The material performs well in a fire. (In much the same way a large log will fail to ignite in a campfire, mass timber's solidity is not conducive to rapid fire.) And, in fact, it has been subjected to a battery of testing both in the U.S. And abroad, including blast tests that have allowed for its use by the military.

Thomas Robinson, co-founder of Lever Architecture, a firm with offices in Portland, Ore., and L.A. That has helped pioneer the use of mass timber in the U.S., says, "It's very different from what you buy at Home Depot."

An atrium features landscape design by James Corner Field Operations. (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

Thomas Robinson is a co-founder of Lever Architecture, which is known for its mass timber projects. (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

Among Lever's projects are mass timber buildings for Adidas and the Oregon Conservation Center in Portland. The team is also behind the thoughtful design at 843 N. Spring, which includes landscape design by James Corner Field Operations (the studio behind the remarkable Tongva Park in Santa Monica).

At the moment, 843 N. Spring is probably the largest structure employing mass timber in Los Angeles, though it could soon be outdone by a mixed-use development at the border of Culver City and West Adams designed by Shop Architects. Whatever its scale, the building is an intriguing example of the possibilities of the material.

Trees, for one, sequester carbon, and unlike concrete and steel they don't require intensive fabrication processes — they just grow. A study published in 2019 in the Journal of Building Engineering, which examined the use of mass timber from harvest to construction, found an average reduction of 26.5% in global warming potential. Mass timber is also produced in prefab panels, which means it can be milled to the specific dimensions of a project, thereby limiting waste, staging and construction times. If a mass timber building is torn down, wood can be reused. Concrete is not nearly as flexible: When it meets the wrecking ball, it generally ends up as landfill.

Mass timber was used in the floorplates of a hybrid structure in L.A.'s Chinatown for L.A. Developer Redcar. (Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)

A view of City Hall from the rooftop at 843 N. Spring St., which features landscape design by James Corner Field Operations. (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

Certainly, just because it's wood doesn't make it environmental. Clear-cutting, for example, is devastating to local ecologies. "Part of our job is to ask the right questions," Robinson says. "You're really trying to identify forests that are managed in a way that really thinks about sustainable forest practices for the long term."

Lever prefers wood that has received sustainability certifications from the Forest Stewardship Council, which includes the timber used in the Spring Street project. Transport to the site is also key. Wood for the building was harvested in British Columbia and transferred to L.A. By ship, which is less carbon intensive than trucking it in overland.

The Spring Street building is a hybrid structure, meaning it still employs steel and concrete. But this is mitigated by other elements in the design.

843 N. Spring St., in the foreground at right, is next to the Chinatown Metro station. (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

Rather than tear out the vacant big-box store that inhabited the site, the architects built on top of it, thereby avoiding additional emissions and demolition waste. In the existing underground lot, they added stacked parking, which made room for additional cars without more digging, and — more important — added generous bicycle storage. (The building practically sits on top of the Chinatown stop of the A Line, making it an ideal hub for multimodal transit.) Unusual for a commercial building, the design also prioritizes fresh air: Each unit has operable windows and sliding doors that allow for passive ventilation.

No building can be carbon-zero — construction consumes resources. But the process can be far less carbon intensive. And, as 843 N. Spring also proves, it can look really good.

A park for the 21st century

Imagine a hilly Southern California landscape about a third the size of Griffith Park. Now imagine stuffing that landscape full of garbage for 56 years. That is the story of the westernmost edge of the Puente Hills in the San Gabriel Valley, where, for decades, roughly a third of L.A. County's trash was deposited. The landfill was shut down in 2013, and this highly engineered mountaintop — which on a clear day offers views of downtown L.A., the San Gabriel Mountains and the northern reaches of Orange County — is now slated to become the first new regional county park in three decades: the Puente Hills Landfill Park.

The park will not be the first to be built on a landfill. Notable landfill parks include the wonderfully named Mount Trashmore in Virginia Beach, Va., and Cesar Chávez Park on the Berkeley waterfront. Currently, the Freshkills Landfill on New York's Staten Island is in the process of being converted into a park. Closer to home, the South Coast Botanical Garden in Palos Verdes also sits on landfill.

County parks Director Norma Edith García-Gonzalez, Studio-MLA's Mia Lehrer and David Diaz Avelar of ActiveSGV stand atop Nike Hill in the future Puente Hills Landfill Park. (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

Park features, which are being designed in consultation with area communities, could one day include a nature play area and a dog run, as well as trails for hikers and horseback riders. (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

But Puente Hills is in a position to benefit from decades of research into more effectively restoring these degraded landscapes.

The use of drip irrigation and reclaimed water, for example, has grown more sophisticated, as has the attention to what is planted in public parks. "The knowledge base and availability of native plant material is much greater now," says Mia Lehrer, founder of Studio-MLA, the L.A.-based landscape architecture firm that is working with Los Angeles County's Department of Parks and Recreation and the neighboring San Gabriel Valley communities to determine what features will be implemented at the site. "There are nurseries that grow native grasses, that grow chaparral plants. Even conventional nurseries understand that all of these plants make a difference and matter."

Read more: OCMA is (finally) finished — and it's as good as it's gonna get

Puente Hillls isn't simply an opportunity to create a pleasant green space. It's an opportunity to restore vital habitat. As she leads me up a hillside on a hazy morning in June, Lehrer points to the eucalyptus trees that cover the landfill's western slopes — trees that are not only an invasive species, but also represent a fire hazard. Lehrer hopes to replace eucalyptus with native species such as oak. "It would create an important biomass," she says, "and help local bird species."

Puente Hills also represents an opportunity to design a park not in a top-down fashion, but in a way that truly engages the surrounding communities — communities that have suffered through decades of rumbling garbage trucks, vermin infestations and infernal smells as a result of the dump. "The climate crisis has made it urgent to think about this in an integrated way," says David Diaz Avelar, director of ActiveSGV, an equity and mobility advocacy group based in neighboring El Monte. It's about "water capture, green space development, habitat restoration, workforce development and environmental justice in park-poor areas."

Designers from Studio-MLA have been meeting regularly with a group of students from three area high schools, for whom this will be a hands-on learning experience in environmental stewardship and landscape design. As the design process moves forward, the Studio-MLA team also hopes to involve students from neighboring Rio Hondo College. Says Lehrer: "We want to try to build that sense of ownership and commitment on the part of the community."

Landscape designer Mia Lehrer, left, and Los Angeles County parks Director Norma Edith Garcia-Gonzalez survey the Puente Hills site. (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

The outreach is giving shape to a design that will be very different from what might have been executed in the 1970s, when some of the bigger landfill parks first began to emerge. Earlier this month, the team at Studio-MLA presented publicly for the first time a preliminary design concept for the first phase of the project, which will cover 142 acres and is set to break ground in 2025. It includes horse trails for a local community of vaqueros as well as an ADA-compliant ramp that will lead to the top of Nike Hill, a popular viewpoint. In addition to open meadows for events and passive recreation, a ceremonial space for local Indigenous communities is being proposed.

Norma Edith García-Gonzalez, director of the Los Angeles County parks department, says the project is exciting for all that it represents — socially and environmentally. "We have to preserve pristine land, but in an urban area where people reside — especially Black and brown people — we also need to restore," she says. "It's an act of healing."

Sign up for L.A. Goes Out, a weekly newsletter about exploring and experiencing Los Angeles from the L.A. Times.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

View comments

Stunning Converted Farmyard Barn With Holiday Cottage, Stables And Courtyard Garden

There's something truly delightful about a courtyard garden and it's not just because it offers a private and secret space away from neighbours and the outside world to create a sanctuary, although this is true too.

Many courtyard gardens dotted across Wales come with history wrapped up within their walls as well as great location and distinctive design. The charming quadrangle courtyard of farmhouse, barns and stables that comprise Denant Farm date back in part to the 16th century, according to the estate agent.

Between 2014 and 2017 the current owners sympathetically developed the site into a stunning home with bonus outbuildings offering a myriad of uses, from extra family accommodation to an established holiday let and the potential to create more. They spent three years sourcing materials and craftspeople, including the windows that are handmade locally by master carpenters James of Ratford Bridge.

READ MORE: A former Cardiff city centre pub that became a huge home with its own bar is now going to auction

The main home has been brought up-to-date with tech that would astound the Tudor owners, including an integrated Bang & Olufsen sound system in the reception room and principal bedroom of the main house. The remaining barns that form this characterful courtyard that surround the parterre garden - a posh French word meaning a formal garden laid out on a level area and made up of enclosed beds, separated by gravel - are barns and stables used either as extra accommodation or storage.

But if a new owner is itching for a chance to give renovation and restoration a go then there's a number of undeveloped barns that could become homes for other members of the family or holiday lets, both options subject to planning consent. If you want to see more stunning Welsh dream homes then join our property newsletter here and our Amazing Welsh Homes Facebook group here.

The property within the courtyard that has already been lavished with a transformation is Tower Cottage, a stunning, self-contained luxury one-bed holiday let that oozes character, from the large, arched entrance that used to welcome coaches more than people, to a cosy mezzanine level tucked into the cute tower.

Show more

Inside the main farmhouse within the courtyard there are five bedrooms, four bathrooms, a sitting room and drawing room and a stunning kitchen diner. The property comes with about 2.3 acres of land, much of it is within another walled garden, plus a mature orchard which is located - yes, within its own walled garden - the delightful final feature to ensure this home totally enchants you.

Most Read {{#articles}} {{/articles}}

Denant Farm and barns near the village of Dreenhill, about three miles from the Pembrokeshire town of Haverfordwest, is on the market with a guide price of £1.95m with Savills, call the Cardiff office on 029 2036 8915 to find out more.

For more dream homes, renovation stories, interiors advice and property celebrity interviews, competitions and discounts too, get your copy of the Amazing Welsh Homes glossy magazine – last few remaining copies available for a special price of £2.99. Buy the magazine here.

1 of 18

Part of the courtyard is the charming Tower Cottage, a self-contained, one-bed holiday let that oozes charm and includes the former coach door openings now massive glass doors with access and views to the inner courtyard and over two acres of land that surround the home.

(Image: Savills, Cardiff) 2 of 18

The front of the main house within the courtyard is the main entrance into the 'inner sanctum' of the property, a private and very pretty inner garden called a parterre.

(Image: Savills, Cardiff) 3 of 18

The courtyard with the parterre walled garden is joined by a large wall garden that comprises a substantial area of the 2.4 acres of land that comes with the home, plus a mature orchard that is also within its own walled gardens - so if a walled garden is a property feature you adore, you've hit the jackpot at Denant Farm.

(Image: Savills, Cardiff) 4 of 18

Ideal as a smallholding as well as a dream home with holiday lets, the garden can boast an Alitex National Trust aluminium greenhouse that can help with growing your own produce.

(Image: Savills, Cardiff) 5 of 18

One of the barns within the courtyard has been converted into a gym and the agent states that the owners have submitted a pre-application for an additional four-bedroom home in one of the many remaining barns.

(Image: Savills, Cardiff) 6 of 18

One area of stabling has not be converted, but could be if planning allows, or it could stay as its original use and become the new home for any horses and ponies making the move to the country too.

(Image: Savills, Cardiff) 7 of 18

Into the main home and the space called the drawing room - a vast and impressive double-height room that utilises the incredible space that this former barn offers as a breathtaking first impression. There's much to admire in this space including a vaulted ceiling made from specially imported Canadian redwood and incorporating Iguzzini theatre lighting and a Bang & Olufsen integrated sound system, feature stone wall, a modern Jotul wood burning stove and sandstone flooring.

(Image: Savills, Cardiff) 8 of 18

The vast space can boast a mezzanine level as a cosy extra seating area, which could make a unique office space too, that leads to two bedrooms and a 'Jack and Jill' shower room. The oversized staircase and gallery is made from French oak and was handmade locally.

(Image: Savills, Cardiff) 9 of 18

The kitchen diner is a stunning room - for space, for light and for fabulous design including an island unit so large it can incorporate a sizeable, built-in seating area too. There's Wolf integrated large double ovens, LPG Wolf gas range hobs with BBQ and griddle plate, extractor fan, Sub Zero American fridge freezer with water dispenser and separate Sub Zero Wine Cooler. The double Franke stainless-steel sink boasts a Quooker tap. But maybe the most impressive feature of the whole space are the stunning, exposed beams and rafters.

(Image: Savills, Cardiff) 10 of 18

The main home has a cosier lounge too, with views of the pretty parterre courtyard garden, bespoke carpentry and exposed steel beams that have remained from the original grain store combining to create a very special space for relaxing and socialising.

(Image: Savills, Cardiff) 11 of 18

The ground floor includes the principal bedroom with ensuite shower room that can boast tactile and visually warming wood panelling on the walls paying homage to the countryside setting and the rustic past of the farm, as well as stunning exposed beams.

(Image: Savills, Cardiff) 12 of 18

The ground floor also includes two more bedrooms, at the other end of the building, and both are packed with character including one that boasts one of the original arched opens that dates back to the time when the barn was part of a working farm, but it now adorned with French-style shutters.

(Image: Savills, Cardiff) 13 of 18

The ground floor also includes a guest bedroom with ensuite wet room plus more bespoke joinery in the shape of the Smallbone walnut hand painted bow fronted fitted wardrobes, plus more character beams and a view to the courtyard garden directly from the pillow.

(Image: Savills, Cardiff) 14 of 18

In total the main home has four bathrooms and they are all finished to a luxury and highly tasteful standard.

(Image: Savills, Cardiff) 15 of 18 Tower Cottage has the most delightful features, including the double arched doorways allowing access to the inner courtyard as well as the rest of the external garden. It is currently being used as a holiday let. (Image: Savills, Cardiff) 16 of 18 Inside the kitchen of Tower Cottage and the sophisticated décor with a countryside accent continues, with the smooth feature wood splashback mounted on a right and tactile whitewashed stone wall arguably the highlight. (Image: Savills, Cardiff) 17 of 18 The comfortable and cosy lounge within Tower Cottage. (Image: Savills, Cardiff) 18 of 18 Tower Cottage might be a cosy, one-bed home but it comes with luxury interiors that any large dream home would happily welcome. (Image: Savills, Cardiff) CONTINUE READING

---