Pots of Potential
One teacher’s renovation of her 1920s inspired a career change – and a pottery school in her garden. Here’s how she cracked it.
Hugh Graham, The Sunday Times, Sunday August 6th 2023
For David and Annabel Johnson lockdown turned out to be a blessing in disguise. In March 2020, a week before Britain shut down, the couple moved from a Victorian semi in Wimbledon, southwest London, into a 1920s house in nearby Raynes Park with their two sons, now 14 and 18. Bought in a probate sale, the 2,400 sq ft house was dark and poky, with four bedrooms and three bathrooms.
By the time they had finished their renovation and extension in May 2022, it was a five-bedroom house with six bathrooms and 3,700 sq ft, including an open-plan living room/kitchen with a 36ft-long rooflight and a wall of Crittall-style windows. But it was the 100 sq ft garden room that really transformed their lives. It gave Annabel, 50, the courage to quit her day job as a primary school art teacher and open her own business in the back garden: a pottery school.
However, the move got off to a rocky start: Annabel had full-blown Covid so David, 52, who works in the reinsurance industry, did all the packing. Once they were in they spent a year camping in the time-capsule house, which still had a 1970s galley kitchen and draughty windows, while they drew up plans on Zoom with their architects, Richard Gill and Paula Martinez from Paul Archer Design.
To relieve the monotony of lockdown Annabel enrolled in a pottery course at City Lit in Holborn, central London, learning in a socially distanced classroom with open windows. She found salvation in clay and started making pots at her kitchen table. "It's very tactile and absorbs you. You are totally in the moment."
When she returned to school in person, she started teaching pottery to her students and was astonished at its therapeutic effects. "When the kids came back after lockdown, they were very hard to teach. For some reason, when I got the clay out it just went quiet. The children were at their calmest and most engaged during these sessions. Something about having their hands in the clay really increased focus, when they had been so heavily engaged in screens for so long. When you're doing it your hands are messy so you can't even pick up your phone."
By this point the couple's renovation was under way, and Annabel's husband made a suggestion, "David said, 'You're making a lot of mess inside [with the clay]. Why don't we put you in one of those garden rooms to give you the space to do it?'"
So, while Paul Archer Design was working on the main house, the couple hired Vivid Green to install a garden room with electrics, a loo and wi-fi for £42,000. Annabel bought a wheel and a kiln for another £3,000 and started sculpting away. Before long Annabel made an even bigger decision: to leave her full-time teaching job. "It had all got a bit much."
She took up a part-time job teaching workshops for the Courtauld Gallery and enjoyed her newfound freedom so much Dave suggested they put their new garden room to good use.
"He said, 'You can do pottery classes down there; it obviously makes you happy.'" A year ago Annabel opened @hagspottery. So far she has four classes: two for children, two for adults, with a maximum of five pupils at a time, as well as private lessons. She has had to take out public liability insurance; you also need to be DBS-checked, have a safeguarding and child protection policy and code of conduct and make sure your setup is "suitable for children"; the NSPCC gives clear guidelines for tutors working in their home.
David, meanwhile, is enjoying his new routine working from home three days a week - one of the five bedrooms has been turned into his home office. There would have been six bedrooms, but they converted the smallest one into a guest bathroom. They also added two bathrooms to the loft conversion they did for their two sons.
"We told them they could have slightly bigger bedrooms and share a bathroom, but they were both adamant - we'll take smaller rooms and each have our own bathroom," Annabel says.
"We have six bathrooms in total," David says, perhaps a reaction to his childhood home in Beckenham, Greater London, where there was only one - outdoor - toilet when they moved in. "There are two more toilets than there are people."
The 280 sq ft open-plan living room/dining room/kitchen is another luxury after their Victorian semi. "It was a tall house and the children were always shut away in a snug upstairs with their Xbox and their phones," Annabel says. "I hated that. We wanted a space that was really open and everyone could be together, but doing their own thing."
It's a dream family room, with a 10 ft-long kitchen island, a hidden prep kitchen where they do their messy work (kitchen units by Brayer Design) and that 36ft rooflight that required two extra steels to hold up. The floor-to-ceiling Crittall style windows are fitted with Somfy electric blinds to keep the room cool on hot days. Those windows cost £15,000, but would have cost an estimated £25,000 if they had had real Crittall installed (these ones are by Reynaers Aluminium and fitted by NPH Installations).
Other cost-saving measures included Annabel choosing her favourite Little Greene colours (Livid, Tea with Florence, Blush), then having them colour matched and made from Johnstone's paints.
…
You couldn't put a price on the best feature: the new direction for Annabel, commuting across the back garden to teach kids and weaning them off their devices. "I have a couple of boys in year eight and their mum says that if they weren't here after school they'd be at home on YouTube. It's definitely beneficial.
"I get lost in my phone too, so this is good for me. It's total absorption. Last night I was here for two hours glazing some pieces and was totally in the moment. When you're a mum your house is not always a relaxing place. But now I don't have to go far to find that place to switch off."
It's the ultimate renovation: change your rooms; change your life. Annabel has no regrets about leaving the old job. "Teaching is so stressful and exhausting. I'm 50 this year and I felt like I didn't have the energy for it anymore. Now I feel I can do what I want. The proof is in happy children and lovely work. And I love teaching again. I was lucky I was able to make that choice."