A house of contrasts

This home was for a nature-loving family, so impersonal glass cubes were out of the question. The new extension meets the garden in a pleasant zigzag, creating new angles for the light and the view. And plants on both sides of the glass work with an earthy iroko façade to blur the distinction between indoors and out.

These owners grew up locally and had long dreamed of living in a large Edwardian house like this one. But it’s no good having the space if you can’t use it. They had fallen into the habit of avoiding the draughty north-facing rooms at the front of the house during winter. We rescued these spaces by installing proper insulation, high-performance windows, and draught-proofing. This made the house feel bigger before we’d added an inch to its footprint.

By lowering the rear section of the house, we were able to rationalise the split level upstairs. This increased the ceiling height on the ground floor, allowing even more sunlight in.

Edwardian designers were great with colour, and we took plenty of inspiration from them here. The rooms now contrast soft whites with blocks of soft “in-between” or tertiary colour. This gives spaces character without crowding them, and leaves options open for the decor.

Particularly striking is the main staircase, now a rich dark purple with a matching runner. For the kids’ rooms upstairs, we made sure we had up-to-date intel on everyone’s favourite colours (and worked out a compromise for the shade of a new door connecting the two bedrooms).