Kemi of Instagram renovation account Cottage Noir is an entrepreneur and founder of Stylist Loves favourite The Cornrow, an online boutique of lifestyle and decor products edited with the modern Black British woman in mind.

As an expert in trend spotting and curating beautiful homewares, it’s surprising to hear that Kemi didn’t already have a vision of a property in mind when she set out to find a family home with her husband and daughters, but it’s the surprise that makes her story all the more interesting.

“Searching for a property, we only really had two criteria,” she explains to Stylist.co.uk. “And that was something we could afford and something in a location near the girls’ school… I certainly did not have 18th century Georgian cottage on my must-have list, I didn’t even know properties like this existed in this area!”

Kemi and her family stumbled across a historical gem in a 1760 baker’s cottage which originally supplied bread for the estate of the local duke. “I immediately fell in love with it,” she recalls. “The layout was interesting, the fireplaces were beautiful. I loved all the beams and the often quirky original features. None of the walls or ceilings were straight, but that didn’t matter, I thought that was fun!”

Home renovation: “How I transformed my 18th century cottage to reflect my African and Caribbean heritage”