‘how we wanted each space to make us feel was key’

Kitchen With cabinetry by Herringbone Kitchens painted in Studio Green by Farrow & Ball, a large Silestone quartz-topped island acts as a natural divide between the cooking and dining areas in this new open-plan space. Isobel chose velvet mustard stools from Rockett St George to complement the dresser, an Oka dining table and CH24 Wishbone chairs from Swivel UK, with green marbled glass pendants completing the look

Finding a renovation project in their local area was a key factor in Isobel and Jeremy Thomson-Cook’s search for a new family home. ‘We were living in a three-bedroom flat in a Victorian mansion block at the time,’ recalls Isobel. ‘But we were ready for a new challenge, and keen to buy a bigger property with a garden we could do up ourselves in our own style, rather than buy an already updated house at an inflated cost.’

The couple focused their search around the East Dulwich area, which has lots of green spaces and parks, a lovely high street, and good train links to the city. ‘We love this little pocket of London, but finding a property we felt a connection with proved a little tricky,’ explains Isobel. Viewing many houses over a six-month period, nothing really captured their imagination until they stumbled across this five-bedroom Victorian terrace on a quiet road just off the high street.

‘We knew instantly that it was an amazing find,’ says Isobel. ‘The house had been a treasured family home for 40 years, and although most of the original Victorian features had been removed and the downstairs rooms felt dark and disconnected, the proportions were really great, there was a good-sized garden, and plenty of scope for us to modernise it.’

After moving in, Isobel and Jeremy spent the next six months living in the house to get a good idea of how they wanted it to work for them while waiting for planning approval, deciding to open up the downstairs by adding a side return and knocking through the small L-shaped kitchen, reception room and adjacent dining room to create one large, light-filled space. The new area was designed with floor-to-ceiling bifolds across the whole width to maximise the connection to the generous garden, which they also planned to landscape. ‘We knew the reconfigured space would have a huge impact on how we used it,’ explains Isobel. ‘And as cooking and entertaining family and friends are some of our favourite p