With land that stretches to the horizon and doubles back again, there was no logical reason why Tim and Nick Hancock chose to live in a stable – apart from Tim being Tim, that is. When she was given the boy’s name Timothy − her mother had grown impatient with her family’s dithering over the choice of name − Tim’s e- ervescent non-conformism had just begun.

From the stable, Tim and Nick farm Nguni cattle for breeding stock, and wattle. ‘I’m the stock farmer, my husband looks after the tractors,’ Tim quips. Land is not in short supply – nor is accommodation. A minute down the road – still on their prestigious properties near Howick in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands – sits a Victorian home, and scattered across the valley are other attractive homesteads. But Tim dug in her heels. When she and her husband moved onto the land 15 years ago, she wanted to be in the stables. ‘I thought they were enchanting, and I wanted to keep them that way,’ she says. ‘We had to alter a few things – level the oors, replace rotten roof beams, knock two stables together to get a bigger sitting room, break through from one stable to the next to allow a passageway – but that was it.’ Thick stone walls, bulges, crevices, food and water troughs in the corners, low ceilings, low lighting and a chorus line of creaking stable doors bear testimony to the stables’ state prior to the alterations. The architectural advisors wanted the crannies filled, the walls regimented, the doors sealed. Tim put her foot down. ‘Let it look like the stable it was, leave that scratch, stay away from that crack,’ were typical of her daily pleas. ‘I’ve never been told to make things badly before,’ was the builder’s bemused response.

Tim got her way − but then, one suspects she always does. With only glass added to stop up windy gaps, and skylights and a motley collection of side windows inserted where possible, Tim’s stables retain their original stone walls, a corrugated iron roof, and simple, whitewashed interior. Besides the extra windows, a deep Cape Dutch fireplace was added to the sitting room. The corner tack room became a kitchen, complete with a modernised Aga. Dishes are still washed in an old porcelain water trough. In the stable where the Hancocks dine, tack rails for hanging bridles are used to hang pictures and ornaments, the stone walls making nails and hooks virtually impossible to knock in. A second bedroom and bathroom use up two more stables, and in the hay loft above the main bedroom, bathroom and office area a- ord inspirational views and easy surveillance of the lands and stock. The calving cattle are in front of the house, just a garden gate away.

The yellowwood staircase leading to the loft comes from a mission station near Kokstad, and although the floors were levelled and furnished with soft Cape Dutch tiles, Tim couldn’t resist mixing in her odd collection of tiles and sleepers salvaged from sheds, garages, homes and junk shops along the way. Tim says, grinning: ‘I’ve always collected junk, and it’s stood me in good stead. I think by the end of it we’d used it all up – and bought virtually nothing new.’ While keeping the stables as authentic as possible, Tim also wanted a large all-weather family room – a room for all seasons – so an extension was built. The vaulting main roof beams come from the old Lion Match factory in Durban, while the rest of the timber is home grown. In one angle sits an old, slow combustion water stove that is protected from the Midlands cold by 40-centimetre walls built (as are the stables) from stone quarried on the farm and that provides a winter meeting place. The other side opens up completely onto the girdling veranda. Old workbenches, from the same mission station and a dusty garage, were fitted with sunk-in cooking facilities, so cooking, eating and relaxing could all happen here, no matter the weather.

After a year of renovation, the house was ready for furniture. Once again, Tim’s ‘junk’ took pride of place. She says: ‘I gave our good things to my children and my mother – the fine antiques, the silver. Instead, I decorated with "cottagey" South African Cape Dutch furniture and hoards of accessories, things that make me feel good.’ Tim’s themed collections include farm animals made from every sort of material imaginable, from recycled plastic to porcelain, wire to wood; whimsical pictures from second-hand shops; calendars and greeting cards; photos of the children; and old kitchen utensils, such as butter makers, our sifters, whisks, spoons, graters, shakers, strainers and squeezers – all roost above the workbenches, fireplace and kitchen counters.

The bedspreads in the guestroom are patched together from blue dishcloths. The cutlery is stored in a test tube rack and the lights are made from what Tim refers to as ‘old plastic things that I painted’. Tim says: ‘I love that crooked, dented, burnt look and I am fascinated by old utensils and kitchen tools. My husband’s thoughts? I think deep down he likes all my junk!’

Upstairs in the main bathroom, a 17th century commode and French bidet, complete with wooden removable lid, take pride of place. Tim says: ‘I love them – the porcelain bowl is beautiful – but I did get a modern, ushable loo plumbed in.’ A ball-and-claw bath lies beneath the changing skies, which are framed in the slanting clerestory windows. In the main bedroom, a patchwork quilt made by Tim’s mother and a special friend keeps its secrets, while versatile shuttered eve windows of Tim’s own design withstand every change in the weather.

With her ourishing family, friends and relatives, the five stables constituting the main house sometime prove too small, so Tim turned to the two crumbling stallion stables in the next field, converting them into a honeymoon suite, which comprises a self-contained bedroom, bathroom, living area and catering facilities, allowing guests complete privacy. But privacy is hardly an issue. The simplicity of the stables and their rustic setting emit a peace of their own, and total relaxation is virtually guaranteed here.

Here, there are few things better to do than gaze in silence at the quietly grazing herds of Nguni cattle and meditate on the lyrical translations of their traditional Zulu names, which re ect the idyllic surroundings of the Midlands – ‘beast with horns like the spread wings of a mouse-bird in flight’, ‘beast with hide that is like the gaps between the branches of the trees against the sky’.

Tim, with her wry smile and quirky sense of humour, steps in here and points out her two favourites: the white cow with black spots ‘like flies in the maas’ and the red-backed, whitebellied one, whose patterning where the red and white meet looks like ‘the skirts of a woman crossing the river’. Perhaps Tim’s journey can be seen as that, too – a woman crossing a river.