HIGH POINT


“Definitely the design process with our architect and making it come to life.” – Athena Hubble


the extensions. “We’re quite social,” Athena says. Mark runs a music company in Brighton and colleagues as well as friends often come to the house. He therefore needed an office that was large enough to accommodate people. One of Athena’s priorities was getting the kitchen-diner – and its connection to the garden – right. While she wanted a certain openness and a space large enough for hosting guests, she also likes “cosy rooms” and therefore needed some separation from other rooms as well. “The kitchen-diner was the big focal point for me,” she says. “I didn’t want a bank of units, a fitted kitchen all the way round the outside of the room, I wanted to flow round the space and have a big table and chairs.” Athena’s brother Richard runs Hubble Kitchens and helped her design it around a central island. She wanted something that stayed true to the organic materials yet was sleek and modern, and they settled on a Leicht black wood. They also included an internal vented hob, due to the low ceiling. They restored the one-room-deep cottage, which includes a library, taking it back to “more of an original look and feel.” This also serves as a retreat from the more social back of the house. In order to bring some character to the extensions, the pair installed two woodburning stoves – one in the downstairs snug and one in the upstairs lounge, which maximises on the views over the wetlands – another of Athena’s requirements. “The woodburners bring a focal point to the room,” she says. In addition, they included some exposed brick and wood


july/august 2019


panelled walls “to bring warmth.” She adds: “I wanted the snug to feel like a little log cabin, with wood walls and a thick carpet.” Installing the woodburners proved slightly


problematic. “We had to do a lot of work to manoeuvre the steels so the flues were in the right place and to get the clearance we needed,” explains Athena, “and it dictated we had to use a certain type of fireproof plaster.” The three-bedroom house has three


bathrooms and Athena wanted two of them to be wetrooms. She also wanted underfloor heating in each one. “You have to factor that in because the floor has to be thick enough,” she says. “Thinking about how you want things to feel and how you want to live, how you’re going to have furniture, has an impact on the design. But that’s the luxury of designing your own home.” The rest of the house is heated with industrial-style radiators. Aside from these specifics, the couple’s main


requirement was to reconfigure the layout. Previously, Athena explains, “we had to walk through rooms to get to rooms, adding, “We had to get the flow right.” They incorporated the garage into the house and added utility/boot rooms and the snug. The internal walls were knocked down and new ones constructed to create the new rooms, which make the most of the views out the back. The roof and structure was reinforced with new steels, and they installed all new electrics. The restrictions on the land meant their hands


were pretty tied when it came to installing sustainable features. However, they reinsulated


www.sbhonline.co.uk 69


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