One Year Off-Grid: Our Journey at Cornish Cottage Homestead

A year ago, we stood at the edge of a new chapter, not entirely by choice. Life, as it sometimes does, nudged us forward—or rather, uprooted us—from our home on a Devon farm, where wide fields and the hum of rural solitude had been our home for years. Through no fault of our own, we found ourselves here, on Cornwall’s wild coast, in an 1850s stone coach house once an award-winning off-grid holiday let. What began as uncertainty has bloomed into a journey of grit, growth, and unexpected joy. This is our story of one year off-grid at Cornish Cottage Homestead—a tale of solar hiccups, wood-fired feasts, and learning to thrive in a home that’s as rugged and resilient as the sea beyond our door.

A New Home, A New Challenge

The coach house, with its thick stone walls and history as a Victorian lawyer’s carriage stop, felt like stepping into a storybook. It was charming but daunting—no mains electricity, no gas, just a trickle of mains water to keep us tethered to the grid. Coming from life on a farm, we were no strangers to rural quirks, but off-grid living with three tech-savvy kids demanded creativity. Our first task? Power and internet. We rigged up solar panels and a wind turbine, paired with batteries, inverters, and charge controllers. Sounds simple, right? Hardly. Our first setup was a comedy of errors—think flickering lights and a charge controller that seemed to have a vendetta. But necessity is a fast teacher. We tweaked, tinkered, and learned, and now our system hums (most days). Starlink brought internet, pricier than we’d like but a lifeline for schoolwork and our family’s online world.

Cooking, Growing, and Learning

The kitchen became our heart. With only an LPG gas hob and a wood-fired range, we’ve mastered hearty stews and fresh-baked bread, though my éclairs—well, let’s just say they’re a work in progress (you may have seen my efforts in my social media posts!). The range’s warmth fills the coach house, and its crackle is our soundtrack. Our large garden is slowly transforming into a kitchen haven, bursting with herbs, courgettes, and tomatoes. I’ve been devouring online composting and growing courses, turning our scraps into black gold and our polytunnels into veggie sanctuaries, roped down against Cornwall’s fierce coastal winds.

Foraging has become a family adventure. The small woodland and coastal path yield blackberries, herbs, and the occasional mushroom, teaching us to live with the land. We’ve planted raspberry canes, strawberries, grape vines, and gooseberry bushes, with the kids pitching in—sometimes reluctantly, but they love eating the results. We batch-cook and freeze, bake weekly treats, and source organic when we can’t grow or forage. Next up, we’re eyeing fishing to stock our larder, leaning into the sea’s bounty just steps away-well a 300ft windy path down (and back up again) to be more precise.

Embracing the Off-Grid Life

No central heating? No problem. The wood burners keep us cosy, and we’ve always preferred layering up and cracking a window open for that fresh coastal air. The stone walls hold heat like a warm embrace, making even stormy nights feel snug. Chickens and ducks supply eggs, and we’ve savoured a pheasant stew from a local gift of game. Repurposing is our ethos—our vintage Singer sewing machine, which has appeared on our feed, stitches new life into old fabrics. Soon, we’ll mill our own grain for flour, chasing the satisfaction of homemade bread from seed to slice.

The Good, The Bad, and The Future

Off-grid life isn’t all rosy. Cloudy days test our solar setup, and the learning curve is steep. But the good days—sunlit harvests, kids laughing as they gather eggs, the smell of woodsmoke—outweigh the bad. We’re not ready to quit the family business yet, but this homestead is our future. We’re exploring rainwater collection to cut our last grid tie, dreaming of more land to expand our vision. Through storms and sunshine, we’re growing—literally and figuratively—into a life that’s as wild and wonderful as Cornwall’s coast.

Thank you for joining our journey. Here’s to year two: more learning, more growing, and maybe, just maybe, a successful batch of éclairs.

Follow along at @cornishcottagehomestead on YouTube and Instagram.