Amanda Brooks' charming Cotswold guest cottage decorated for Christmas

Amanda describes the cottage they live in as ‘kind of a living, breathing thing. An amalgam of all the friends and family who had lived there before us. The house was done in the Eighties, and it's still so Eighties in lots of ways. I often have the impulse to strip it bare. Christopher and I are both chameleons who get very absorbed by our surroundings, so this little house was an opportunity for us to stretch ourselves in a different direction. I would say in some ways this place is much more reflective of mine and my husband’s taste than the house we live in.’

It was Christopher who initiated the project. Seeing the potential in a collection of small semi-derelict buildings that had once been the piggery, he drew up plans for a three bedroom dwelling. A courtyard between the existing structures was roofed over, creating a generously proportioned central room which now houses the kitchen and one of two living areas. The high wood-clad ceiling gives way on two sides to rows of delicately framed modernist windows. The original stone walls were kept exposed in places and painted white, while everywhere else is a symphony of reclaimed wood.

‘The thing you need to know about my husband is that he is a fanatical collector of building materials,’ laughs Amanda. ‘He spends hours on eBay and Etsy. I was like, what are you doing with all this stuff? Anyway, he has justified it. The walls are constructed from old scaffolding planks. They couldn't be any less glamorous, but they look really beautiful. He also found a stash of Ipe from Brazil. The trees had been submerged in water for 10 years. Some of it became the countertops in the kitchen. This place is basically an expression of his love of wood as a material. Now I understand that this was the perfect place to use all the things that he’s been collecting. ’

On the back wall bricks repurposed from a demolished hospital were left bare and varnished to a gloss reminiscent of Moroccan Zellige. The kitchen units are made from mid-century laboratory cabinets, with a stainless steel cooker and worktops shipped from Christopher’s old loft apartment in New York.

‘When he first moved there in the Nineties he lived in the Meatpacking District, and was completely obsessed by the restaurant supply shops. He thought the stainless steel they stocked was beautiful. When he moved out of that loft he stored the kitchen in his painting studio for years, and put it in the container when we moved to England. Now it’s found a very happy home here.’

The porch at the back of the house, which has one of the best views in the farm, is inspired by the vernacular of the houses in the Adirondack Mountains in Northeastern New York where Amanda’s parents are based. This isn’t the only nod to their past life in the United States.

‘Christopher and I had a mid-century home in Long Island that we really miss. We were very much trying to incorporate that language into this space, and have used a lot of our old furniture from that home here. Most of it from our favourite antique shop in Long Island, Beall & Bell.’

While Christopher had a singular vision for the architecture, Amanda took care of the interiors, filling the house with interesting textiles and accessories, many of which are also stocked in her shop.

‘Editing is what I'm best at, more than designing per se. My mother is a decorator and she really informed my taste. Her mantra was that you should never be able to name the origin of everything in a room. There must always be some found objects, and textiles no one will recognise. So that is really the DNA of how I furnish a house.’