Peter’s top tips for a winning home

1 Aspect

When I bought my own house a few years ago I only looked at houses where the rear was south to south-west. You will spend your life paying for this home and your family will grow up in it. In my home, from when the sun comes up to when it goes down, we have natural light. It’s bright and it’s always warm as we have heavily insulated it and it retains the heat. The trick is to let that natural light and heat in and keep it in the home. Not only does it keep the bills down, it makes a warm and natural environment to live in. You have to get the fundamentals correct.

2 Potential

When I first went looking for a home I was looking for a building in poor condition. I didn’t want to be paying for other people’s mistakes or bad taste. I suppose every architect will want to do their own thing with their own home. I purposely wanted something in need of a big refurbishment so I wanted to get the envelope of the house right. It’s a low energy home and completely stable in terms of temperature. And nothing that went into our skip was of any value. The walls were pink and green, crazy stuff, but that didn’t matter. I was looking at the potential and imagining what it could become.

3 Open plan spaces

Today people live in their homes totally differently to how it used to be. It used to be a small kitchen where you cooked and then appeared with the dinner. Now cooking is very social, having time with your family after you come in from work. In my own home the whole rear space is open plan. The children sit at the island while Gilly and I are cooking and we are all talking about our day. Also it’s good if you can make the garden very much part of the downstairs of the house. So the walls in my garden are the same colour as the walls in my kitchen and in summer time we spend a lot of time there. Most of the joy in a house is in the ground floor.

4 The Future

You need to think about the future when planning your house. There is no point in designing a home just to suit your immediate needs, because things will change within 12 months. From my perspective, with young children, we have a playroom at one end of the open plan and there is a set of folding doors that can slide across to close that space off. That space will evolve then to suit the kids’ needs as they grow up and their social activity changes. Looking further forward you can include a space that could facilitate a downstairs bedroom at some point. It’s all about planning for life changing as it does.