Welcome to my home
W“It’s a wellorganised home with a place for everything, that really works for family life”
orking from home with a young family, the Ingrams dreamed of a house with scope to build a garden office. ‘We eventually found a three bed ex-council house with a wide, south-facing garden,’ says Thea. ‘A mother and son had bought it through the right-tobuy scheme but were in a legal dispute over ownership. A court order meant they couldn’t accept less than 10 percent under asking price. It put off developers, so we were the only serious buyers,’ says Thea. ‘Every room and numerous garden sheds were piled high with rubbish – 14 tonnes were removed before completion – and we could only view the house with both owners, the estate agent and a police officer present.’
The couple sold their four-bedroom terrace nearby and moved into the two-bedroom flat Joel bought before they married. While waiting for planning permission for the garden office, the front room was decorated as a temporary work space for Thea and her employees at Stanza Interior Design (stanza-id.com). As the Arts & Crafts house had few original features, they had no qualms about stripping everything back during the five-month project. ‘Our vision was to open up the ground floor by knocking down the lean-to conservatory and extending in line with the neighbour’s house. Quad Architects re-designed the first floor, creating an extra bedroom by moving the staircase and dropping the ceilings to give us the head height for a loft conversion.’
Thea added built-in storage in every room, including the hallway and landing, and the house has a simple palette of grey and white with mustard accents. ‘This place works perfectly for us now, at least while the children are at school. Eventually, we’d like to build a house from scratch out of town,’ says Thea.