At the heart of the Graham family’s home is a garden, a picture of order and calm. But as the home which encircles this oasis of green has been created from restored farm buildings, the garden itself once led a less glamorous life. Where there was muck, there is now grass, and where pigs and farmyard noises prevailed, there are beds of lavender, white-headed marguerites and a sparkling water feature.

Richard and Elaine Graham were living in a flat above 140, their fashion and lifestyle emporium and café in the Surrey village of Cranleigh, when Richard’s father proposed “doing something” with the barns behind his nearby family home. “I’d played in the barns as a child,” says Richard. “They were tumbling down but the most wonderful place for a pack of teenage boys to be let loose.”

With the arrival of their son Finn, now aged 8, Richard and Elaine needed more space, so the barn development got under way. “Once we had planning permission, I took on the day-to-day development with a local builder. It took three years to get two of the barns to a habitable state.” By this time, the family had grown, with the addition of Miles, now 6. “There is a third barn, probably the oldest, dating from the 1500s, which we still have to tackle, but we have plenty of room as we are,” he adds.

Where possible, the sloping windows, uneven timbers and utilitarian feel of the place have been kept. “We didn’t want a chintzy version of a barn. We were keen to keep as true to the original character of the buildings as we could,” says Richard. “We were lucky because many barns are dark, and local authorities are not keen on giving permission to cut windows into the walls. But here there were doors to allow cattle from the shed in the field behind to pass through the main barn to the internal courtyard, so we glazed the existing openings, which give us ample natural light and views on either side of what has become the dining area. We also rebuilt a rear extension on an existing footprint to provide a guest bedroom and bathroom.”

The family’s bedrooms are in the now interlinked adjacent barn. The boys love their room, with its pirate-like ropes attached to the roof timbers and a raised storage area above the doorway, enclosed in reinforced glass, which doubles as a lookout.

Much of the furniture was chosen to be in keeping with the informal style of the barns. The kitchen has free-standing units from Bulthaup, the zinc-top dining table came from Liberty and other pieces were found at auctions. “We often go looking for things for our shop, but come home with furniture for the house. And some of the larger units are from the shop itself; they were taken out during a refit four years ago, and have slotted in here perfectly,” says Elaine.

The main bedroom has double doors opening on to the courtyard garden. “Richard and I have similar tastes,” says Elaine “but when it came to this garden, we had different ideas. Eventually, he said he would leave the planting to me, and he would get on with the vegetable plot he was creating on the other side of the house.

“While the building works were still in progress, a friend of mine, Kate Poore, was training as a garden designer and often stayed here while attending lectures at a local college. When the structural work on the barns was nearing completion, Kate suggested drawing a garden scheme for the courtyard as a way of saying ‘Thank you’ for her stay. Kate’s design incorporates an exisiting brick circle that we think might have been some sort of a grinding or milling stone. My grandmother gave us the tree that is planted in the centre of the yard, and I ‘furnished’ the garden with wooden Adironack chairs and footstools, Clevedon loungers and a round dining table and chairs from Gloster.

“Because the house wraps around the garden and is seen from almost every room, I was keen to have interesting vistas. So the flowerbeds at the bottom of my grandmother’s tree can be changed and planted with seasonal colour, while being framed and contained by the constant green of the clipped box hedge.”

So while the boys play rough and tumble in their tree house or on the climbing frame by the old cow shed, Elaine and Richard can enjoy the peace and tranquillity of their labour of love.

www.oneforty.co.uk; www.gloster.com

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