‘we’ve kept the bones of the house and added colour’

When Erica Burton first viewed the dated 1930s semi that was to become home five years ago, she instantly pictured how it could work for her young family. ‘I loved the idea of a big entertaining space at the back of the house, decorated with a modern dark and pink colour scheme,’ she explains. ‘I knew we could do something with the downstairs layout and also extend upwards, but we didn’t want to get too excited until we got a couple of quotes.’

Moving from a new-build property, the couple craved the character of a period home with more space; plus, they wanted their two daughters to have their own bedrooms. ‘We knew we couldn’t afford to do a loft conversion as well as reconfigure the ground floor,’ recalls Erica. ‘So we focused on a design solution that would hopefully meet both options.’ The couple drew-up three layout designs: a single-storey extension, a double-storey extension above the kitchen, and a wraparound extension with a double-storey on the side, then asked a builder friend to give them a rough pricing on all three. ‘It made no sense to pay for architect plans and find we couldn’t afford to build what we wanted,’ says Erica. ‘We really wanted the third option, and to include a large master suite, but financially it made sense to go with option two.’

Erica and Jim then took their final drawing to an architect who worked up their ideas, and even created space for a utility room using some of the old kitchen. Extending above the kitchen gave the couple a bigger main bedroom, while an unused box room was converted into a walk-in wardrobe. Opening up the downstairs space to enjoy more social activities as a family, the layout is now much more fluid, with the couple also aligning ceiling heights and reinstating period features such as the picture rail, coving and a fireplace. The family stayed put during the renovations, setting up a makeshift kitchen in their