close

The Househunter: Room By Room

This was the most popular househunter post in February and it’s a gorgeous house so I thought you might like another look around. 

It’s been a busy week so I thought we’d start off here with this lovely London house that has been painted in a palette of soft muted colours. Fancy coming round? It’s in east London and it’s on the market with The Modern House for £1,350,000.

There are three bedrooms and it’s part of a Grade II listed terrace which has been completely renovated and refurbished by Lynch Architects. It’s spread over four floors with the master bedroom and bathroom on the lower ground floor, the kitchen and dining on the raised ground floor, the living room and bathroom above and two bedrooms on the top floor.

It’s not a layout that will work for everyone but it’s common enough in certain parts of London and you have to decide how you want it to work. Some people choose to move the bathroom up to the top and have a study or the third bedroom behind the living room. It depends how many people are going to live there and how often they are going to need to get up for a wee in the night.

But, leaving the practicalities aside for a moment, let’s just admire the decor. To my client who was nervous about a pink bedroom with gold curtains, I draw your attention to the above. I think it works. You may disagree.

To anyone who fancies a restful shade of green that isn’t as dramatic as forest or olive then what about this. Paid with the natural stone fireplace and black leather armchair, it’s both calming and considered.

I love the stone fireplaces and staircase as well as the original stone floors which have been left where possible. You’ll need to get friendly with your local rug merchant if you buy this that’s for sure.

Right now let’s stay in London but go and have a look around another period property – this time Victorian in Kentish Town that’s on for £2,250,000.

Also completely remodelled, this time by Block Architecture, the layout has been changed to make the most of the natural light and the way we live now. Which means the kitchen has been moved to the front of the house and the living space is at the back with the view of the garden.

It’s completely logical when you think about it but although we might spend thousands of pounds replacing our kitchens and changing the layout so we can cram a sofa at the back by the doors, very few of us actually move the kitchen to another spot altogether. In many ways the best place for the kitchen – in a traditional Victorian home at least – is in the middle – the back of the sitting room in a knock through if you like. That allows for a huge light-filled dining and living area at the back of the house and a second, smaller, evening sitting room at the front.

This house has four bedrooms but the architects have also very cleverly taken the whole of the first floor for the master suite so the big bedroom remains at the front, the smaller bedroom behind becomes a dressing room and the room behind that (often a bathroom) is the en suite. It’s a bold use of space but one that is instantly more luxurious and more suited to the way we live now.

You can see here the view from the bedroom through the dressing room with generous wardrobes on either side and the bathroom beyond. And below is the view in the other direction.

So many of us live in Victorian homes and try to bend them to our will and make them suitable for a modern way of life by repurposing the rooms that are there but sometimes it’s best to move a few walls and work out what you want and need from the space and move things around accordingly. That way you may just find that you don’t need to spend a fortune extending the kitchen at the back to make it large enough for a sofa and living area because, if you move the kitchen to that smaller, darker room in the middle, you may just find you have all the space you need right there. And when I say kitchen I mean literally the area in which you prepare food.

Anyway, that’s the thought for the day. Have a lovely weekend everyone. I’m off to photograph my newly painted sitting room now that the light is better. The grey has gone by the way. The room is now a deep dark plum colour. You can see the pictures as soon as I can take them.

 

Kate Watson-Smyth

The author Kate Watson-Smyth

I’m a journalist who writes about interiors mainly for The Financial Times but I have also written regularly for The Independent and The Daily Mail. My house has been in Living Etc, HeartHome and featured in The Wall Street Journal & Corriere della Sera. I also run an interior styling consultancy Mad About Your House. Welcome to my Mad House.

4 Comments

  1. That’s exactly what we did in our small terrace. Grown up lounge at the front of the house then we converted the middle room to a large kitchen with a long table to eat at, with a small utility/office room off this and then a family snug/dining room (we have a fold away table we drag out for when we need to) with large glass doors out into the garden.
    Anyway, it’s the second property for me, that master bedroom is giving me heart eyes.

  2. oh wow!! – I couldn’t agree more, many times I have thought about putting the kitchen in the middle of the house (if budget allowed), it would mean I get to see the lovely fireplaces all the time too. My only reservation is that it would make for a very linear sitting room at the back and Im not sure how to get around that. The bedroom/dressing room thing makes perfect sense too and I LOVE it.

  3. Seduced by the beautiful rich dark plum paint of Cassandra Ellis?! I felt I was going to drown in the gorgeous bitter chocolate colour can’t wait to see how your room looks! Love her depth of colours.

Comments are closed.