LOW POINT
“We blew our contingency budget on underpinning the house after
discovering it had been built without foundations!”
HIGH POINT
“Designing the interiors – particularly the bathrooms – was the most enjoyable part.”
JESSICA’S ADVICE
“Don’t scrimp on your downstairs cloakroom, because it’s the one bathroom that all your guests will use.”
new home before their son was born. “It was becoming increasingly stressful, and we decided to view a house which had been on the market for some time and was a bit below our budget,” says Jessica.
The detached Victorian house in a popular
Surrey village was dark, poorly laid out, and in need of complete renovation. Jessica and Harry had never previously tackled such a large project, but both recognised the potential that the property offered.
“It was quite a small, pokey house. The
ground floor had a sitting room and separate dining room to the front, and two rooms at the back had been combined to make a kitchen,” says Jessica. “Upstairs there were four bedrooms, a bathroom and en suite. The garden was completely overgrown and there was a tatty detached double garage to one side, so leaving our lovely open plan London home to come here was quite depressing!”
In May 2017, the couple moved into the house with their daughter, Georgia, who was then two. They had decided to live there for a short time before later moving out while the renovation and extension work was completed. Their son, Jackson, was born shortly after, and the new layout was initially designed around a family with two children. “We Googled architects in the area and loved the look of Concept Eight Architects’ projects,” explains Jessica. “They were very responsive, operated on a fixed-fee basis, and I knew immediately that these were people I wanted to work with.” The award-winning practice specialises in
residential architecture of all scales, in London and the south east, and its work has featured widely in the media. Director and founding partner, Mufajel Chowdhury, says: “One of the big things for us is to identify and understand the setting, so a detailed site appraisal is something that we start with on all projects. Then it’s about how someone feels in our spaces, as much as how they look, and we try to really understand how a family wants to live | in the house.”
The family spent most of their time living in the kitchen to the rear of the house, in order to keep close visual contact with the children, but this meant that the other ground floor rooms were rarely used. “It felt like we were living in a tiny flat, so our brief was for light, open plan spaces,” says Jessica. “I was probably quite bossy when it came to the design, but although I knew what I wanted, I didn’t know how to bring everything together and make it look cohesive – that was where our architects came in!”
DESIGN
Demolishing the existing shabby double garage would have created plenty of space for a side extension, but Jessica knew that this west-facing part of the garden was a real sun-trap. She asked Concept Eight Architects to design a double height extension to the other side of the house, freeing up the former garage
issue 02 2021
They were finally able to move into the house in 2019, just in time for lockdown as the pandemic swept the world
site as a terrace. A single-storey kitchen/dining/living extension to the rear would then connect to the terrace and garden through glass sliding doors, designed to wrap around the structure. When fully open, these would create the impression that the kitchen/dining area was part of the garden, with just one slim supporting column on view.
The new extensions would double the size of the house, with a two-storey side addition forming a ground floor playroom/snug beside the kitchen, as well as a utility, plant room, boot room, shower room and pantry on the ground floor.
Above this, two new bedrooms were
created for the children, allowing the first-floor layout to be reconfigured to form a generous principal bedroom with an ensuite and a walk-in wardrobe. The existing sitting room was extended, and the former dining room turned into a study as part of the ambitious project, which involved rewiring and plumbing the entire house. “Previously there were only north-facing windows to the rear, with none to the side, and the huge trees in the garden cast shade and made interiors dark,” explains Jessica, “It was dingy, cold and miserable, so the priority was to bring in as much natural light as possible using glass.”
Flexibility and futureproofing were also important considerations, and a new staircase – necessary to meet Building Regulations – was positioned to make a loft conversion practical. The planning application included a loft conversion, together with the two other extensions, and permission was granted for all the adaptations, including introducing west-facing windows. The only amendment to the design was a request for a first-floor window to be frosted, as it overlooks the neighbouring bungalow. “We didn’t go ahead with the loft conversion for various reasons,” says Jessica. “We borrowed against the house and our budget was already allocated, but then the bank decided to withdraw their offer and only provide around a quarter of the amount they’d promised. Fortunately, we managed to borrow from another source, but it caused a great deal of stress!”
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