London House
The reordering and extending of this Edwardian house was planned with foresight to match the changing needs of the family
Plans for reconfiguring and extending this Edwardian property were carried out with a growing family in mind.
Buying a house is usually about more than size and location. Often it is about details that express the spirit of a place. In 2015, Tracey Shirtcliff was looking for a family house in west London and while viewing an Edwardian property on her favourite street, the sweep of the stairs and a curved wall in the sitting room hit the spot. The eucalyptus tree in the back garden merely served to seal the deal. Tracey wanted to put her stamp on a house and this was the one she knew she would also find a way to her heart.
Tracey hits life running with engaging, often fearless, optimism. She came to London from New Zealand in 1996 for a six-week holiday and never went back. More than 20 years later she owns and runs her own software business, producing tools for creative industries. Her perspective for this seven-bedroom house was centred on designing it for family life over the next 10 years when her daughter Madison, now 10, and son Harrison, eight, would be growing up. And that eucalyptus tree remains a touchstone, evoking memories of Tracey’s childhood in New Zealand.
Tracey’s plans for the house were typically ambitious. She wanted to extend the kitchen and excavate a new basement for a cinema and entertainment space, a gym, utility room and additional bedroom. She engaged an architect to take on the challenge of obtaining necessary planning permissions, then she began work with her builders on altering room layouts on the ground floor. ‘My first objective was to set up a view right through the ground floor from the front door, with the sitting room on the left retaining its period features and a certain formality,’ says Tracey. ‘Then the space would open out into a more contemporary enlarged kitchen, dining and living room with a wall of glazed doors to the garden.’
When Tracey realised she needed more help in organising spaces and making furnishing decisions she called in Lisa Schiller and Kim Beynon of Schiller Beynon Interior Design. ‘They were phenomenal at managing me,’ she says. ‘I talked to them a lot about maximising daylight, wanting
functional spaces for family life with the children, and designing schemes for their rooms that would last through their teenage years.’
The reorganisation of rooms on the upper two floors was a major undertaking. ‘On the first floor there were four bedrooms and three bathrooms and on the top floor three bedrooms and three bathrooms,’ Tracey explains. ‘Lisa and Kim helped me work out how we could get three bedrooms and three bathrooms on the first floor and a bedroom suite with bathroom for me on the top floor. The builders thought I was mad to reduce the number of bedrooms but really, the house would still have five instead of seven with the one I was adding in the basement.’
One factor influencing choice of decorating colours was the importance of achieving an easy flow between areas. With this in mind, there are no hinged doors in the house – every room has pocket doors, custom made to a wider specification. Also, echoes of soft green are repeated throughout, a reference to the beloved eucalyptus. Tracey loves gold as well, not bright and shiny but dulled and muted. Mixed with shades of white it reappears all the time in furniture, textiles and accessories.
The refurbishment took three years and there was great excitement when the children were shown their bedrooms for the first time, being designed to their own specifications. ‘There are so many things I love about this house,’ Tracey observes, ‘and when I walk through the front door, that’s often the moment I realise just how lucky we are to live here.’