Rehab Diary, Part 1: A Small House Overhaul in London - Remodelista
Meet Isabel and George Blunden and their 1,100-square-foot fixer-upper in London.
The House, Before
Photography by Jonathan Gooch for Remodelista.
When we bought our terraced house in southwest London, our first place together as a married couple...
...it was barely bigger than the flat that we had just sold. We told ourselves: The key really was not how much space we had, but how well we could use it.
Isabel and George Blunden at their new front door. Every cost- and corner-cutting renovation and bad decorating decision that could have been made had been made.
The Ground Floor
The front door opens to a combination living room and dining room.
It was absolutely standing room only in the kitchen–and if the dishwasher or oven were open, it awkwardly trapped you on one side or the other.
Structurally, the galley kitchen was the main problem.
The kitchen also took up the only sunny corner of our northwest-facing garden. With the benefit of hindsight, employing an architect at this point might have helped with storage issues and squeezing the most out of our new home.
Plans mapping the existing conditions of the two-story house.
Having come across plenty of similar properties during the course of our long house hunt, we had an idea of what could be achieved by shifting a few walls around...
...opening up rooms, and allowing light to flood through, all of which would give the place a better, more functional flow.
The proposed changes on both floors. On the second floor, fortunately, less fancy footwork was required.
The Second Floor
Despite the fact that there were no structural changes upstairs, we were still dreaming big, including a complete bathroom renovation.
Fortunately, we didn’t have to decide right away.
Lacking closets, where to stow our clothes?
Stay tuned: Tomorrow, I’ll take you through our under-construction adventures.
