Minerva Interiors

Specialising in kitchen, bathroom and bedroom design and installation, Minerva Interiors is run by award winning designer Helen Faulkner along with her partner Andy Stubbs - the couple set up the business after moving to Ross from London about six years ago. ‘We wanted to live in the country and we just saw Ross and fell in love with the place,' she says. ‘We decided to start the business here and it's worked really well. Considering we're not in London, we've done incredibly well for a business like this.'

Offering a free initial design service, Minerva has now taken on an external project manager to help with the volume of business, alongside a range of electricians, plumbers, builders, carpenters and craftsman that the company regularly sub-contracts to. ‘We can do anything from simple kitchen worktop replacements to extensions and loft conversions, all sorts of things,' she says. ‘If you want work doing on your house we can organise it and have the whole thing project managed for you.

Both of them worked in Ross for nearly a year before starting Minerva. ‘During that year I put everything in place to set it up - designing the website and stationery and building up my contacts' she says. ‘My degree's in interior design, and I've been doing that ever since graduating from university.' Business comes either through Minerva's website or recommendations from existing clients - the company covers mainly Herefordshire, Gloucestershire and Monmouthshire but is more than willing to go further afield for the right job.

So what's it like running this kind of business from Ross? ‘The nicest thing about the area for us is that there are a lot of people with really interesting properties - like lovely barn conversions - so we get to be involved with these really nice unusual houses and projects,' she says. ‘I've just come back from a lodge on the top of Howle Hill, for example - a cross between a log cabin and old cottage, with amazing views. There are some really great properties around here.'

‘It's a lovely place to live,' she continues. ‘In total contrast to working in London, as I did before, I can get to a customer's house without having to sit in traffic for two hours. We just fell in love with the town. My parents were looking to retire to the Cotswolds but someone suggested Ross instead - they came to have a look and put an offer on a house straight away. We did the same thing - we came to see their house, fell in love with the place and just left London without having jobs to come to.'

So was it easy getting a business like this off the ground here? ‘It actually took off straight away,' she says. ‘We've had some really interesting projects and great clients.' Has the business been affected by the economic downturn or are they finding they're more in demand as people decide to stay put and improve their property rather than move house? ‘I'm currently working on five major jobs, all of which are brand new, so it's actually looking really promising at the moment,' she says.

Minverva is also a genuine home-based business, operating from a property about a mile outside Ross. So are there any plans to expand? ‘We're working with our new project manager and expanding in that we can now cover every area of interior design. We'd thought about opening a shop or a showroom but I became pregnant so we decided not to do that, and I'm glad we didn't. We're very flexible working from home - we can work the hours we want, which is important with a child - and there's a really great nursery here in Ross, which is another real selling point for the area. And being flexible means we can branch off into any area we want to - we've got very low overheads!'

www.minervainteriors.co.uk