No.10
Gutting their Victorian terrace allowed Barbara and David Hall to replan the layout to improve flow and maximise space
HOME TRUTHS
THE PROPERTY Victorian terrace
ROOMS Kitchen-diner/living space, cloakroom, utility room, four bedrooms, two bathrooms
LOCATION West London
Passionate property enthusiasts, Barbara and David Hall found themselves moving on unexpectedly after receiving an offer they couldn’t refuse on their newly renovated house.
Fortunately they had six months to complete.
‘We’d just started our first commercial renovation with our property solutions business Bunny Hall, so we changed tack using the six months to finish so we could move in instead,’ says Barbara, a sports marketing director. ‘In the end, this house turned out to be a far better place to live with our newborn, Willow, now two.’
Barbara and David, who works in property finance, had initially bought the two-bed terrace because of its sought-after location near the High Road. It was in a dilapidated state.
‘There was nothing to salvage and that was the most exciting thing,’ says Barbara. ‘We removed the entire back of the house and all the rotten floors. Our goal was to make the most of the footprint and create flow.’
Although the couple’s project began with a commercial agenda, they were aware the life stage of prospective buyers or renters would probably mirror their own.
‘The area is popular with young families like ours, so in my original design I’d already thought about buggy storage and the importance of open-plan living,’ Barbara says. ‘I took inspiration from a magazine project where I loved the kitchen at the front with the sink in the bay window.’
The couple dropped the floor height by 60cm to allow their worktop to fit beneath the existing windowsill. In doing so, they levelled the ground floor and made the whole space open plan. The opportunity also enabled them to achieve 2.8m head height with 2.4m in the converted loft ‘This allowed important hallway storage, a utility and cloakroom,’ she says. ‘We also took out all three chimney breasts to make the rooms as wide as possible.’
