When Joan turned 84, her family faced the conversation every family dreads. Her hip wasn't what it used to be, the stairs in her old house had become a daily risk, and the nursing home brochures were already sitting on the kitchen table. Her daughter Rachel couldn't do it. So she looked out of the window at the empty patch of lawn behind the house, and had a very different idea.
Six months later, there it was. A small single-storey building at the bottom of the garden, no bigger than 400 square feet, with grey cladding and a gentle ramp leading up to the front door. From the outside it looks like a very tidy garden office. The neighbours assumed it was storage.
It isn't. Behind that plain front door is a complete home — kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, living room — built entirely around one woman's life. And the moment you step inside, you understand why Joan says she has never been happier.