Redefining tradition: A modern twist on a London Edwardian villa
With its handsome double-fronted exterior, wisteria-clad brickwork, and bay windows, the home Olga Barnes shares with her family in west London has all the hallmarks of a traditional Edwardian property.
Open the front door, however, and that notion is instantly dispelled. Rather than looking down a tight hallway, you see light flooding in from a wall of steel-framed glass doors at the back of the house and the green of the garden beyond. 'I love the fact that you see the outside as soon as you enter,' says Olga. 'A wide open space like this is so welcoming.'
Before buying it, Olga and her husband, Gil, had rented the house for six years. 'It was special,' she remembers, 'at the end of the street, which is green and leafy despite being in the city.' It meant that they had plenty of time to plan a redesign, which entailed digging out below ground to create a basement level, extending the ground and first floor at the rear, and removing walls to open up the rooms.
'We wanted to create social spaces as well as areas to retreat to so we could have some peace and quiet,' Olga explains. Then, there was also an additional important requirement to consider: where to accommodate Olga’s 100-strong army of houseplants.
Proposing plans in a conservation area can be a challenge. The couple had three failed applications before turning to architects Zulufish, whose common-sense approach ensured it was approved. 'Setting it back from the boundaries meant there were no issues about infringing neighbours' privacy or blocking their sunlight,' explains Caroline Milns from the firm, which managed to double the size of the property.
Olga and Gil were just as bold in their ambitions for the interior. 'Rather than filling the house with our existing furniture, we started again and sought out pieces that would suit the new space.' To help make the most of the property, Olga worked with interior designer Helen Stiles of Hide & Seek.
Helen's flair for creating a 'collected not decorated' look and ability to tell stories through her schemes appealed to the couple, who are keen travellers and have amassed art pieces and objects during family trips as far afield as Japan, South Africa and India. Some of these pieces are now displayed on the reception room's shelves, in what Olga describes as 'a kind of world bazaar from the adventures of our lives'.
As the house was restructured and extended, including the conversion of the loft, which is now used by the children for sleepovers, it meant replacing all the plumbing and electrics. ‘You don’t often get the opportunity to start from scratch,’ notes Olga, and the couple was able to create a smart home with Lutron intelligent lighting and air conditioning, with the units cleverly concealed in the joinery.
Appropriately, as the room is central to family life, work began with the kitchen extension. 'Gil is the cook, though our daughter Olivia is also really good,' says Olga. 'We eat a lot of Asian-inspired dishes… the rice cooker is running nonstop.'
Handleless Poggenpohl units give a streamlined look, while an island with stools beneath is perfect for pizza-dough rolling, drinks and breakfast on the go, and there’s plenty of space to allow for two people to prepare food together. ‘We put the cooker against a wall with reflective tinted mirror-glass behind it, which means Gil can see what's going on while he's cooking.'
Helen’s brief also included creating a cinema room in the dug-out basement. It has a bar that features a mirror-backed, bottle-lined bar and a seating area, a large screen and modular sofa, and a table ‘that doubles as a place where anyone can head with their homework and spread out all their papers’.
As well as adding more space to the property, optimising natural light was a priority in the refurbishment, and with this in mind, large black-framed steel and glass doors by Fabco were fitted throughout the back of the house. Another major job was moving the staircase from the middle to the right of the property and creating an open, spiralling design in steel, which has a glass-drop chandelier spanning three floors.
But the project wasn’t without its disasters. A faulty toilet flusher gave rise to a flood and a huge amount of damage. Floors and the heating systems beneath them had to be taken out and replaced, plaster walls rebuilt, and tiles in bathrooms taken out and retiled.
Nevertheless, Olga and Gil have achieved a stunning contemporary home within a period property. It’s the perfect multi-tasking modern design they set out to create, offering opportunities to be social but also to have peace. As Olga concludes, ‘Everyone can find what they need: space to themselves or a place to spend time together.’
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