House renovation - East London

It is always a great pleasure bringing sombody’s vision to life. In 2017, we started an extensive loft conversion, renovation, extension and basement to our clients home in East London. Alongside their architect, Sara at Shackwell Architects, we completely reconfigured and reappointed the house creating definitive zones and spaces. We transformed the back of the house with a large kitchen extension leading to a basement cinema room and utility room. Our clients were keen to maintain the traditional elements of their Victorian house but add industrial and modern touchs with the use of Crittall* doors to separate various rooms and spaces. The use of Crittall has created different zones but maximised light into all the spaces. In the loft conversion, we added a large en-suite bedroom. Here, the bathroom has maximum light filtering in, again by utilising the Crittall doors and windows to separate the space. It is complete wet room incorporating a beautiful old Victorian fireplace. On the middle floor we renovated all the bedrooms and installed a new family bathroom. The master bedroom with its large en-suite uses Crittall to separate the space. Throughout the renovation our brief was to create modern, industrial style spaces but being sympathetic to and retain traditional features including ceiling coving, Victorian doors and handles, retain and restore original fireplaces and the original floorboards throughout. Storage was also an important aspect of this project and we incorporated storage as far as possible without losing space.

In our opinion, the most successful part of this project is going from the original Victorian house through to the modern and bright extension. Having to work at a lower level than the original house, the design here was critical and the solution proposed by Sara at Shackwell was superb with a wide opening between the sitting room and kitchen and steps with a glass balustrade. This has created a quirky feature joining the two spaces. Alongside this is the adjoining stairs down to the cinema room in the basement. Between the Kitchen and garden we needed to ensure that everything was at the same level. Our clients did not want to have to step over a threshold and we achieved this! Another feature of the kitchen extension is the glass roof. This is a pretty unique feature in that it is frameless. Maxlight (http://maxlight.co.uk) supplied and installed this magnificent window feature.

A bonus addition to this house was where we added a cinema room to the basement. There was a lot of structural support necessary to create the basement but we made a space that was large and included a well-appointed space with a small kitchen / utility area.

Overall, we are very proud to have been able to bring Sara and our clients vision to life and we think the results speak for themselves.

*Crittall doors and windows are a style of steel frame that is typically associated with New York loft style or 1930s style windows and doors. Crittall windows and doors are now manufactured in a range of materials (including aluminium and steel) but retain that distinctive industrial style. The Crittall style is typically used as windows and doors of extensions and room dividers and even shower screens. Crittall is edgy, versatile and slim and fits the profile of the current industrial trend in interiors. The clever thing about Crittall is that it allows you to partition space creating different zones without compromising on light or space. Furthermore, their simple design lends themselves to fit in with all sorts of styles including mid-century and Scandi-style. For more information on Crittall doors and windows (www.crittall-windows.co.uk/residential/?category=windows-doors-residential).