Hallway and porch
‘We painstakingly stripped the stairs back to the beautiful wood, which we treated. In the porch, the Victorian tiles were uncovered and the glazed partition reinstated.’
BUY THE KEY PIECES
Willow Boughs wallpaper,
£60 a roll, William Morris at Wallpaper Direct. Insectum
print, £50, The Dybdahl Co
Siobhan Mcfadden, a colour consultant for Farrow & Ball, lives here with her husband Rory, a civil engineer, and their daughters, Una, four and Nora, one.
STHE PROPERTY
A four-bedroom, late-victorian terrace in Edinburgh, bought in August 2017.
THE VALUE
Similar properties in the area sell for £575,000.
“The property was so run-down, no other buyers showed any interest. But that didn’t put us off!”
iobhan and Rory Mcfadden took jobs in Edinburgh nine years ago, relocating there from Ireland. They found a two-bedroom flat on the west side of the city and settled in… until the arrival of their first child changed everything. ‘When Una was born in 2017, we needed more space.
The only way we could afford our preferred location was to take on a property that needed a lot of work and we fell in love with this one’s quirks immediately.
‘The kitchen was the priority: with an old tin sink and virtually no cupboards or appliances, it was unusable. The dining room next door was small and both rooms were north-facing, so felt cold and dark. We knocked down the dividing wall and came up with a new layout. It was tough living on a building site with a toddler and we had to work hard to get it done, but three months in we had a beautiful, fully functioning kitchen.
‘Although many of the period features had been stripped away, it still retained a few and restoring the house to its former glory was important to us. We preserved character with the cornices, picture rails and architraves. We also stripped back the original flooring, reinstated the mantelpieces in the bedrooms and uncovered boarded-up fireplaces. We spent a lot on salvaged cast-iron radiators for an authentic look.
‘When it comes to decor, I love colour but prefer a neutral backdrop. It isn’t a big house, so we kept to whites, adding colour with soft furnishings and painted furniture. We worked in the evenings and at weekends, and at times it felt like slow progress, but it has been rewarding. I documented it all on Instagram (@home_stead). We have lovingly restored our little Victorian terrace, pouring so much love and energy into it, and our hard work has paid off. It’s unrecognisable!’