Ashworth Barn, Sheepscombe.

When Jo and Sam first rang, the barn had been empty since 1962. The north slope of the roof had slipped, the oak trusses were soaking up every shower and an ash tree had rooted itself in the threshing floor.

Two other builders had walked away. Ruth and Marek spent a morning on the scaffold with a torch and a notebook, and came back with good news: the walls were sound, and seven of the nine trusses could be saved.

A listed barn needs listed-building consent before anyone picks up a trowel. Kate drew the scheme in-house and met the conservation officer on site four times. We kept the cart entrance as one big glazed screen, put the bedrooms into the old granary bays and agreed two small rooflights instead of six.

Consent came through in fourteen weeks. The ash tree stayed — we moved the driveway instead.

Marek’s masons repointed every wall in hot-mixed lime and re-laid the roof in Cotswold stone tiles — sixty per cent of them salvaged from the barn itself, sorted by size on the lawn like a giant jigsaw. Dennis and the joinery workshop made a new green-oak frame for the first floor and every door in the house.

Underneath it all: a limecrete floor, underfloor heating from an air-source heat pump and wood-fibre insulation that lets the old walls breathe.

• 9,400 stone tiles
• 1,100 m² lime pointing
• 26 m³ green oak
• 7 of 9 trusses saved

We handed over on the Friday before the late-May bank holiday, swept the yard and left a cake on the kitchen island. Jess went back at three months and twelve months to fix the little things every new home throws up — two sticking doors and a dripping outside tap. The barn is covered by our 10-year structural warranty until 2035.