LOW POINT


ur neighbours on one side fell out with us. We had to pay an enclosure fee to join the ground fl oor extension onto the wall belonging to the neighbours on one side. t was calculated as 50% of the cost of the wall. n the grand scheme of things, it’s not a huge amount, just bricks and timber, but it was about £3,000 to £4,000 of added costs. hat was one way of keeping the peace.


to achieve.


nce atch  ason was on board, it then took until une  to fi nd the right builders, Surrey-based new-build and refurbishment specialists Klas Projects, and to wait until this busy fi rm had enough space in the schedule to accommodate such a maor proect. he house came with few original period


features. he previous owner had carried out a renovation 30 years earlier, during which the fi replaces had been removed, leaving the front door as the most intact traditional element. So there was plenty of scope for a new vision; a four bedroom home in the heart of London that brought the soft tones and calmness of the editerranean to the city.


Escapism was on my mind, says olly.  wanted lots of arches in the house, to have lots of curvature, a really nice feel and shapes. his kind of leaned into the original house anyway. t’s so wonky, there’s no straight wall in our house. here were also technical considerations. he loft had already been converted, but not to current Building Regulations, so upgrading the top fl oor was a priority, and the existing kitchen extension was poorly completed. t was uite a big situation, says olly. he loft conversion had to be completely redone. one of the timber had been signed off. We bought a house with a loft conversion and a kitchen extension and you ust don’t expect this. We ust had to face it and fi nd a way to pay for it.


At the heart of the house there is now a double- height atrium, an impressive focal point forming the kitchen-living- dining area


At fi rst, the plan was to adapt more of the original house. ut the extent of demolition proposed was so severe that it made better construction sense to demolish almost all of the original house, says atch  ason principal architect Andreas Andreaou. he proect was nearly a new build, but we salvaged materials such as brickwork and timber wherever possible. It sounds onerous, taking down almost an


entire house and starting again, but Andreas explains that the process was fairly simple. For the most part, it was undertaken in stages. here was a phased approach to the build, which enabled the front facade to maintain its


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