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Countryside Living Special

The intrepid renovators making rural dreams come true; building a home on the edge of the world; life in a dovecote; and can modern furniture work in a country pile?

Renovation road: could you restore a crumbling château?
Buyers searching for a rural European idyll face long waits for tradesmen and escalating costs
Watering can-do: gardening tools
Quirky, classy implements for every outdoor job
What’s it like to live in a dovecote?
The UK once boasted thousands of these architectural oddities. An obsessive explains their appeal
Hot property: five homes for sale in the English Cotswolds
From a farmhouse with undisturbed views of the Dunt valley to a home with a six-hole golf course, mill stream and pond
Life on the edge of the world: making a home remote from society
Sparked by the pandemic, more people are opting for an alternative existence far from pollution, crime — and people
Can modern furniture work in a 16th-century farmhouse?
‘When I think of country comfort, I think of squidgy sofas, ottomans the size of small cars and plenty of soft lighting’

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Interesting ways with spring floral displays
A vase of tulips, an eclectic centrepiece or even an Easter wreath