This log home has been a game changer, reuniting three generations of our family and securing our futures too

View all 17 photos

Living on the other side of the world with a young baby and unable to travel back to the UK thanks to strict lockdowns, Elly Nason and her partner Rob knew they wanted to relocate back home, but didn’t yet know how.

Having emigrated 16 years ago, they had been working for the health service in Western Australia and knew they would like to see more of Elly’s UK-based mum Mandy. “We had been talking for quite a few years about what the future would look like. Whether I would move to Australia or whether they could come back here,” explains Mandy.

“We explored lots of different options,” continues Elly. “But visas are quite difficult for Australia, particularly if you are older. Then we looked at Canada where the visas are easier, and land and houses are cheaper. But it would be starting afresh for all of us.

“Then Covid happened and that really confirmed we wanted to be back home in the UK. We were locked in Western Australia for two years,” says Elly. During that time, their young son was born, and when borders finally reopened, Elly made the trip back home with the baby to see her mum.

“We hadn’t seen each other for so long, I was desperate to come home. But when I then had to return back to Australia after seeing Mum that first time after lockdown, that was really hard, not knowing when I would ever be back. So Rob and I made the decision that we would definitely be moving back to the UK for good, but we just didn’t then know how.”

From afar they researched options for the family as a whole to live together. “We took a serious look at properties in the UK, in places like the Scottish Borders that offered two lots of living accommodation but they were always too remote and the annexes too poky. It would have been a huge compromise for Mum,” says Elly.

“I didn’t want to live in a bedsit and the properties that needed work, needed too much work,” adds Mandy, who lives in a gorgeous two bedroom period cottage in Surrey, that now boasts Elly and Rob’s cabin as its neighbour. “We had talked about converting or rebuilding a large summer house I had at the bottom of my garden. However, we always thought we needed full planning permission here, as when I had a small extension added to the side of my cottage, it took a lot of planning effort.”

The trio then discovered you can add an annex under the Caravan Act, if it is for family to live in, within the curtilage of your garden, and is transportable. “We had no idea. So we talked to three companies offering these annexes, and Norwegian Log was actually our third choice as we thought their cabins were out of our price range. We didn’t want to raise the benchmark too high and be disappointed. We actually invested quite a lot of time with another company and then Mum said ‘why don’t we just have a look at Norwegian Log’,” laughs Elly.

“She went with a friend to see the show home in Reading, rang me in Australia and said Norwegian Log’s annexes were a game changer, and that we had to make it work because of the difference inside the cabins, the feel of them, and that they were like home. Mum was so passionate about it,” says Elly.

The young family upped sticks from Australia and made the permanent move back to the UK into Mandy’s cottage. “So there was the three of us, our young son, and five dogs, and it then snowed!,” laughs Elly. “But Rob and I visited Norwegian Log, and like Mum, fell in love with their show home and immediately started the design process for our new cabin. We were trying to remain as modest as we could, as we were mindful it was in Mum’s back garden, but we still wanted a proper home.”

Their gorgous new log annex boasts a bespoke layout with a sleek and contemporary kitchen/utility room, large living room with log burner and bifold doors onto a private garden, two spacious bedrooms and a family bathroom. If guests come, they are able to stay next door with Mandy.

“Norwegian Log dealt with all the planning and it went through really promptly. They had a cancellation slot in the summer so were able to start on site very quickly. It took them nine weeks to put up and then we sorted out the interior and by October 2023 we had moved in,” says Elly. “It’s so warm, we haven’t had the radiators on at all. We had Christmas in here with 14 people and had to open the bifold doors. Now it’s summer, we open the doors and our son goes out onto the decking to play.”

The family are clearly enjoying the benefits of living next to each other. “This has transformed our lives,” says Mandy. “You can talk via FaceTime to someone on the other side of the world, but you can’t do the everyday chit chat.”

“And it’s great for Rob and I as we have a babysitter,” adds Elly. “To see our son’s relationship with my mum blossom has been wonderful. It was also the only financial option. The only other one would have been to buy a one-bed flat in Surrey above a shop. We could obviously have made that work but we certainly wouldn’t have been as happy as were are living in this beautiful home.”

Sensibly, the multi-generational family have already discussed their needs for the future. As Elly explains: “The plan is that we will swap homes with Mum at some point. Her cottage has a tight staircase, so when Mum needs to live in a single storey, she can just come here, and we’ll move into the cottage To have that security, knowing we won’t have to move to a completely different place in the future is brilliant. At the moment, Mum is here to help us with our son - but in the future we’ll be here to look after Mum.”