MOVING STORIES
Living in her new house for a while before renovating helped Abby create her dream home, while downsizing meant Caroline was able to find the perfect home for her next life stage
‘We used Pinterest to find our style’
Abby Hollins, a student Montessori teacher, and her husband, Chris, a company director, moved from Manchester with their two small children, Jackson and Isla, to a Victorian terrace in Chiswick, London. Although they were keen to have some outside space for their children to play in, Abby and Chris were realistic enough to know they were unlikely to be able to find it in their price range in London. ‘We’d looked at completed projects and realised we weren’t going to get what we wanted,’ says Abby. ‘So we decided to view properties that needed work and that’s when we found this house and fell in love with its space.’ The three-bedroom Victorian place in leafy Chiswick was end of terrace, on a corner, and hadn’t been extended. They asked
‘My new house is smaller but totally me!’Caroline
Bloor recently sold her family home in favour of a traditional two-bedroom cottage in Tunbridge Wells, Kent. ‘It had always been my plan when my daughter left home to downsize from the practical 1960s threebedroom semi we’d lived in for most of her childhood, to something with more character in the middle of town. Our family home had served its purpose – now I only ventured into the spare bedrooms and conservatory to clean them, or went into the garden to cut the grass. I wanted somewhere cosier, easier to maintain and better-suited to the next phase of my life. So, last January, I put the house on the market for £425,000. I’d known that leaving my neighbours would be hard, as we’ve become friends over the years – and it was. But the hardest thing about downsizing was parting with two-thirds of my furniture
ABBY’S STORY
Chris’s childhood friend, Felix Milns of design and build firm Zulufish to give his expert view. ‘Felix got really excited when he saw this place,’ says Abby. ‘He could see there was plenty of scope to expand and create something special, which encouraged us to go for it.’ With two sets of families up north – Abby’s in Liverpool and Chris’s in Manchester – the couple wanted to have a house that could easily accommodate guests.
INSPIRATION Although they had plenty of ideas about how they wanted their new home to look, the couple were also prepared to take their time and get things right, and so they decided to live in the house for a while before renovating. ‘That really helped us see how we were using the space, the rooms we spent the most time in, and to understand the good things about it as well as the areas that needed to change,’ explains Abby. ‘For instance, the garden was at the front with a gate that opened onto the road, so we couldn’t let Jackson out on his own. The kitchen was tiny, but there was a utility room, which I loved.’
The couple decided to extend the ground floor to the side and rear, lower the floor to increase the ceiling height, move the staircase and relocate the front door to the middle of the side wall. ‘Moving the front door was a revelation,’ says Abby, ‘as it increased the floor space and gave us plenty of storage in the hallway, with a large kitchen-dining-family room on one side and a separate chill-out zone on the other.’ They also extended into the loft with an ambitious plan to create two extra bedrooms and a shower room. ‘As we have so many visitors, being able to convert the loft into a guest suite was a dream come true,’ she adds.
MOODBOARDS Felix’s wife Caroline, who runs the interiors arm of Zulufish, encouraged Abby and Chris to create Pinterest boards with their ideas for the design of the interiors. ‘Although we know what we like when we see it, we find it hard to describe in words,’ says Abby. ‘The Pinterest boards really helped us.’ Images of Crittall windows kept popping up on their boards, along with concrete, steel and leather. ‘We wanted a durable, working kitchen, as we both love cooking,’ says Abby. ‘The relaxed, urban, industrial look appealed. And as soon as I saw the blue paint I loved it. It works with the Crittall-style windows and the exposed brick.’
HAPPY ENDING The fun of designing the interiors was balanced by the stress of the renovation work, which took 10 long months to complete. During this time, the young family moved into a five-month short-term let and then stayed with friends and family. ‘We were living out of suitcases,’ says Abby. With two small children it was tricky. ‘I’d buy toys from a charity shop and then drop them off again when it was time to move on. It’s surprising how little you can live with. ‘But now the house is finished, having this space and the ability to entertain family and friends is amazing. We knew it would be good but we didn’t realise how good.’