Fully inclusive

ABOVE LEFT Practice Zulufish managed the design and build (zulufish.co.uk). The bespoke kitchen has Calacatta sintered stone worksurfaces and splashback, and cost £60,000, Hux (hux-london.co.uk) Unhappy with the room arrangement at the back of their end-of-terrace home, Kirti and Viral Mehta hired an architectural design practice to create a new ground-floor plan as part of a whole-house renovation. Architect Patrick Owens’ scheme involved knocking down an external wall between the house and side-return extension, and walls inside the outrigger.

A loft extension provides a new bedroom, taking the total number to four, and on the ground floor there is a family-friendly open-plan kitchen with living and dining areas that spans the entire width of the house. Kirti, who is a lawyer, and Viral, a private equity investor, have three children, Yuvi, four, Sureya, two, and Sia, seven months, so the couple wanted somewhere to spend time together and room to host family and friends.

A planning application was submitted for the removal of a rear bay window and remodelling works to the side-return extension, which can be seen from the street, as well as the loft extension. Permission came through within eight weeks, after which several loadbearing internal walls were taken down and the floor above given support with a steel beam and post. Swapping the extension’s tiled roof for a mono-pitched glazed structure provides plenty of light, and the glazed sliding doors open onto the garden.

With the architect managing the build, designer Felix Milns of kitchen and bespoke joinery company Hux led the way on the furniture, fittings and layout. ‘I was brought on board pre-construction, so I fed design ideas into the overall room planning,’ he says. ‘It’s a good way to synchronise the key components of a renovation.’

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