TOUGH LOVE This city terrace is given an industrial-chic feel with natural materials and a monochrome palette

Natural materials, contemporary finishes and a monochrome palette give this city terrace an industrial-chic feel

Anna and Shane Butterick spent four years planning the look and feel of their next home, basing their ideas around the industrial materials of steel, brick, concrete and wood. The couple, who own GSB Building, waited patiently for the perfect house to come along that they would be able to make their home, while Shane was kept busy renovating his clients’ properties. ‘We didn’t want to pay a lot for somewhere that had already been extended as we had the skills to do it ourselves, so we held off until we found exactly what we were after,’ says Anna. ‘It actually worked out really well because it meant we had the time to research products as well as get inspiration from our clients’ projects.’

Anna and Shane, who are originally from New Zealand, moved to the UK in 2008. Happy to settle here for a while, they wanted a home big enough for themselves and their children, with plenty of space for visiting family. And in November 2015, their plans came to fruition.

‘The Victorian terrace we found had no heating, no proper kitchen, black mould on the walls and a hole in the roof – it sounds crazy but it was just the house we’d been looking for,’ Anna says. She wasted no time and got straight to work on the new layout with Shane, which included extending and opening up the back with steel-framed doors. Shane also wanted to maximise the square footage with a loft conversion – but they had to sweet talk the neighbours first.

‘We couldn’t convert our loft unless next door did theirs as well, as we have a shared, hipped roof that would have to become a pitched

roof,’ Anna explains. ‘The work would change the street appearance of our homes and we needed planning permission.’ Fortunately, the neighbours agreed and the projects were carried out at the same time.

Since the house was in such a bad way, there were no original features to retain and the couple made the bold decision to strip out the entire property, leaving just the front facade intact. ‘As we didn’t have to agonise over keeping anything, it was much quicker to rebuild the shell,’ says Anna. ‘And we took the opportunity to dig down slightly in order to fit underfloor heating, which meant we were able to improve the ceiling heights throughout.’

At this stage, the couple brought in Rob Wilson from local architecture and interior design studio Granit, who Shane had partnered with before. ‘Rob was particularly good at creating a sense of space in the house by widening the front hall and increasing the height on the back extension to three metres. He also reminded us that, with large, steel-framed doors, we needed a pretty garden to look out onto and suggested a living wall,’ explains Shane.

The couple were keen to make use of Granit’s expertise in local planning policy and got Rob to draw up their planning application. It was granted two months later and both loft applications were approved later that summer.

Once the building work was complete, Anna and Shane set about turning their loft space into two bedrooms and a bathroom, converting a room on the first floor into a fabulous main bedroom with ensuite. Anna, a graphic designer, was keen to experiment with

‘The house had no heating, no proper kitchen and a hole in the roof – it was exactly what we were looking for!’

different materials. ‘We wanted to try laying a microcement floor in our new kitchen-diner-living room. And we were keen to experiment with modern wall finishes from XyloCleaf,’ she says. ‘These are similar to sheet laminates – they come in wood, stone and fabric textures and patterns that are so realistic, you can’t tell they’re not real until you get up close.’

The microcement floor was laid in the open-plan living space, and the walls of the ensuite and downstairs WC finished in polished Venetian plaster, which Anna had loved when she saw it in a client’s home. ‘It’s quite a tricky process to apply it but our plasterer did a brilliant job,’ says Anna. ‘It has a beautiful shine and feels amazing when you run your hand across the surface.’ Textured finishes feature throughout the house with exposed brick and XyloCleaf ’s laminate panels used as cladding on the loft bedroom walls, on doors and on the kitchen island.

‘We really liked some of the details Shane had been implementing in our clients’ projects, such as recessing curtain tracks and lighting,’ says Anna, ‘so we decided to use them in our own home. They’re small touches but make such a difference to the overall finish.

‘Our house looks stunning, we’re delighted with the result – it’s even better than I had imagined,’ continues Anna. ‘We’re really pleased with how the combination of materials has worked and it’s great that we can show what we’ve done to prospective clients first-hand. It took us a long time but it was definitely worth the wait.’ HB

GSB Building gsb-building.co.uk

‘We’re really pleased with how the combination of materials has worked’