LABOUR OF LOVE
Morgan Scott-murch and her husband Jon worked hard to turn a tired Victorian villa into a beautiful family home
One couple worked hard to turn a run-down Victorian villa in Kent into a stylish family home
decorating advice ‘Use a mixture of mismatched vintage and contemporary-style chairs to add a sense of fun and unique personality to a dining area’
Creating their ideal family home became Morgan Scott-murch and her husband Jon’s focus when they decided to leave the leafy suburbs of Richmond in south-west London. ‘We were living in a beautiful two-bedroom penthouse flat, but neither of us wanted to raise a family in London,’ says Morgan, a project development manager. ‘I’d grown up in Kent and had always been fond of Royal Tunbridge Wells with its beautiful architecture, parks and buzzing high street. Plus, it also has great transport links into London.’
The couple decided to focus their search there and it wasn’t long before they found a large Victorian villa with a beautiful drive and big back garden. It had been divided into bedsits and had a kitchen on each floor and, aside from running water and heating, it was incredibly outdated. ‘It’s not often that properties like that become available and we could see there was huge potential to create something very special, so we couldn’t say no,’ says Morgan.
As soon as they moved in, Morgan and Jon started work, project-managing everything themselves and fitting in the work around their full-time jobs. ‘It was difficult at times trying to squeeze everything in,’ recalls Morgan, ‘but we’re both used to management and delivery in our jobs and tried to treat it just like another day in the office – arranging our time in the most effective way and managing the work in stages.’
Starting from the top, the couple worked their way down, living in the lower part of the house while they gutted the whole top floor, knocking through the three existing rooms to create a master suite with a bathroom, a dressing room and a bedroom with a decadent,
lesson learnt ‘To go with the flow – it took twice as long and cost more than we thought to renovate this house compared to our previous flat’
freestanding copper bath. ‘We rewired, replumbed, insulated, reboarded and replastered,’ says Morgan. ‘Just before Christmas, the suite was finally finished. I remember just feeling utterly relieved that I had somewhere I could relax away from the chaos in the rest of the house.’
Building a kitchen-diner extension was the couple’s next priority. They designed the layout, asked an engineer to draw up plans and hired builders to construct the shell but, true to form, did everything else themselves. ‘Jon and I make a great team,’ says Morgan. ‘We are both grafters and enjoy the physical work. Jon excels at visualising how something should look, and I’m usually the one who brings those ideas to life in a way that works for us and the house.’
Thankfully, a lot of the work had been completed by the time baby Loxley arrived early in August 2018 and Jon and Morgan were able to take it easy for a while and enjoy being new parents. ‘Over a year on and we are still renovating the house,’ says Morgan. ‘Only now Loxley is a keen contributor and can often be seen wandering around with a paintbrush in hand. A long maternity leave meant I could work around naps, and we’ve since found time to refit the family bathroom, create a pretty nursery for Loxley and make a vibrant guest room.
‘We didn’t start out with a strict plan, so our style has evolved with our home. We buy what we like and, luckily, it all seems to work. I don’t think either of us realised how much the renovation would take over our lives. We have plans for the remaining rooms, but as renovating is something we have come to thoroughly enjoy doing together, we can’t wait to get stuck into the next stage.’