Homes TV House the artists’ barn Ben Coode-Adams and Freddie Robins took a gamble on their Essex barn conversion, starting with just half the funds their quantity surveyor recommended – but hard graft paid off in the end, rewarding them with a home that’s as unique as they come Words Luke Tebbutt Photography Rachael Smith above Barn conversions can be dark, but planning restrictions meant that Ben couldn’t install visible roof lights. He got round the problem by using a mesh roof left Owners Freddie and Ben, with daughter Wilhelmina far left Gaps in the sixteenthcentury timber frame have been filled with plywood and strips of alder Don’t be fooled by the modern, £130,000 mesh roof on Ben Coode-Adams and Freddie Robins’ barn from the new series of TV’s GrandDesigns. Inside, it feels more like being swallowed by a giant timber dinosaur – 8.5m tall, with all its bones exposed, dating from about 1560. There’s no plasterboard, paper or paint to hide the structure – just raw architecture. ‘I love that people still think we have to do the carpet or finish off the plaster,’ says Freddie, an artist and textiles teacher at London’s Royal College of Art. ‘I love that it doesn’t have those trappings of a normal home – they’re too comfortable and cloying and claustrophobic. I love the extremity of it.’ Not everyone does, though. ‘Quite a lot of people are horrified. It’s against everything they think a home should be,’ says Ben, also an artist. ‘Friends of my parents said, “God, doesn’t look like they’re anywhere near finished yet.”’ But they are – just. We visit days after the TV crew’s final filming, which required a frantic push to clear g GRAND DESIGNS / NOVEMBER 2011 / 47