By remodelling and extending their historical home, one couple are enjoying it in new ways
WORDS JAYNE DOWLE PHOTOGRAPHY FRENCH + TYE
It’s covered by pale oak flooring from Reeve Wood
Losing a bedroom on the lower ground floor of their home was a sacrifice worth making for John and Jenny Blair because it became part of a spacious open-plan kitchen with dining area that leads to a new TV room, a utility room, and a shower room.
‘John and I wanted the house to work for the way we live 95 per cent of the time and to be adaptable for when we have guests,’ says Jenny. The original layout of kitchen, bedroom and en-suite bathroom did not suit their needs. ‘We wanted a dining and living space on the same floor as the kitchen,’ says John. ‘We tended to cook and take our food upstairs. We were forever going up and down.’ Being able to make changes to their semi-detached, Grade II listed home, which is in a conservation area, relied on liaising closely with Hackney council. To extend the lower ground floor at the back of the house, the couple’s architects went through a pre-application consultation with the local authority, aiming to upgrade their previously granted planning and listed building consent for a remodelling project, without an extension, that gave access to the garden through French doors.
‘John and Jenny embraced the idea of a modern, low-level, sympathetic extension that the council would welcome,’ says architect Chris Hawkins, who worked on the project with his colleagues. ‘The lower ground floor’s open-plan layout unlocks the house, and the extension’s glazed sliding doors improve the connection to the garden.’
The project began with the contractor excavating the floor by around 30cm to increase the ceiling height, a process that involved overcoming one of the main challenges of working on this 180-year-old listed house. ‘Building the lowered floor construction around the traditional brickwork corbel foundations required a specialist design from the structural engineer in order to retain them, avoid underpinning and to comply with the listed building consent,’ says Chris.
Afterwards, the brick and block extension went up with rigid polyisocyanurate (PIR) board insulating the walls, ceiling and floor. It reaches 2.6m into the garden, giving John and Jenny an extra 20sqm of space.
To enable them to keep living in the house during the year-long project, the couple – who both wor
