FAMILY HOME
UPWARDS & outwards
AFTER LIVING IN THEIR HOME FOR SIX YEARS, KIRSTY AND STUART HASLAM EMBARKED ON AN INSPIRED EXTENSION TO FUTURE-PROOF IT FOR THEIR GROWING FAMILY
FEATURE KAREN WILSON PLANS RICHARD HOOKWAY
Garden
‘Since knocking the old garage down, we get the sun here all day in our outside kitchen area with its pizza oven. In the future we’d love to have a projector for watching movies and a hot tub.’
THE LAYOUT
As you enter the hall, the playroom is on the right at the front of the house, with a large open-plan kitchen and living/dining area spanning the rear, and a utility room created from the back half of the garage. On the first floor there are three bedrooms, including the main bedroom suite, with dressing room and en suite, plus another dressing room, office and family bathroom. The top floor houses two guest bedrooms, one with a balcony, plus another bathroom.
When Kirsty and Stuart Haslam were expecting their first child in 2015, they felt it was time to sell their loft apartment in Manchester’s Northern Quarter and find a family home. Although they weren’t looking for a doer-upper, they noticed a three-bedroom house in Cheshire with potential but that needed full renovation. And, after researching the area, they realised that it would be the ideal place to start family life.
WHAT CHALLENGES DID YOU FACE?
‘With a leaking conservatory, an avocado bathroom and peeling wallpaper in the en suite, we had our work cut out for us. We made it liveable to start with, then re-plastered, fitted new carpets and replaced the bathrooms before our second son was born. We then saved enough to create a three-storey side and a single-storey rear extension. Unfortunately, Covid struck after the builders started. Delays combined with spiralling costs made the process incredibly stressful, especially as part way through the eight-month project I gave birth to our third child.’
HOW DID YOU CREATE YOUR FAMILY HOME?
‘There was a huge double garage taking over most of the rear garden, so we knocked it down and built an outdoor kitchen with a pizza oven and pergola, leaving the lawn for the boys to play. Because we then wanted to add a new garage on the
