BACK TO BASICS
A minor mishp helped one couple secure the period house of their dreams
After six months of hard work, one couple achieved the Victorian home of their dreams
Getting locked out during the first viewing of their dream home – an 1820s townhouse in Leeds – turned out to be the best thing that could have happened for Lucy and Alex. ‘The owner was showing us the garden when we realised the latch had dropped on the door,’ says Lucy. ‘We all saw the funny side but, by the time we were able to get back in, another couple had arrived for a viewing.’
The other househunters liked the house too, and both couples offered the full asking price, but the owners – having built a rapport with Lucy and Alex while they were locked out – accepted their offer.
‘We were over the moon,’ says Lucy. ‘We’d been looking to move from our flat nearby for more than a year, and this house ticked all the boxes. It’s quiet, private, close to the city centre and full of character.’
Lucy and Alex stayed in their flat for six months while they renovated the house. ‘I’m a perfectionist,’ says Alex. ‘Although the house was well looked after and we could have moved straight in, we wanted to take it back to basics and create a modern style – but one that complemented the age of the property. There were so many layers of paint on the walls and woodwork that we decided it was time to strip them all off and start afresh.’
With the help of Alex’s parents, he and Lucy worked every spare weekend and evening for six months to renovate the Victorian property, taking out the old bathroom fittings, pulling up carpets, laying new floors throughout, reinstating a bedroom fireplace, tiling the new bathroom and sanding every inch of the wooden fixtures and fittings back to their original state. The bathroom was given a walk-in shower and the kitchen, which has the units installed by the previous owners, was decorated and a new floor was laid.
‘It was a painstaking process and seemed to take forever, but if we were going to do the work, we wanted to do it properly,’ says Lucy. ‘We didn’t follow any methodical order – we just jumped about to ensure we got some variety – but in the end, we did every room ourselves, except for laying the new floors, the plumbing and decorating the hall – we’d had enough by then and hired a decorator!’
The renovation wasn’t without its issues. A leak in the cellar highlighted a problem with the old lead pipes, which then had to be removed and fitted with copper ones, and when they bought reclaimed cast-iron
radiators to replace the characterless modern ones, it took several of their friends to hoist each one into place.
‘We also had a huge problem with deliveries,’ says Lucy. ‘We had a kitchen radiator delivered five times before they got it right – the first one leaked, the next two were the wrong size and then when it came to the fourth one, they sent the wrong colour. And it wasn’t just the radiator. Lots of things arrived either damaged or broken. It became a bit of a joke.’
Once the basics were finished, Lucy and Alex moved in and began to add the finishing touches. They chose pale grey as a linking colour, which they used throughout the house, adding feature walls for interest. ‘Finding the right shade of grey was harder than we thought it would be,’ says Lucy. ‘We didn’t want a blue-grey, which could have been quite cold, but a soft background shade that would work with lots of accent colours. We bought 30 sample pots before we found the one we wanted, which is Little Greene’s French Grey Mid.’
The furniture and accessories have evolved over time, although the couple had a very clear idea of the look they wanted – a combination of retro and modern, cool greys and splashes of colour, with fittings to reflect the period and character of the property. ‘All the original features were still intact, apart from a fireplace in the guest bedroom, which had been boarded up and painted over,’ says Lucy. ‘We had a cast-iron fireplace in the flat that we brought with us, and it fitted perfectly.’
Lucy spent hours gathering ideas and inspiration from Pinterest and together they found modern pieces from shops such as Heal’s, Loaf, Made, Habitat and John Lewis & Partners. ‘We tend to like the same things,’ says Lucy. ‘There were a few splurge purchases, as we call expensive statement pieces, that we teamed with cheaper options. We did this in the dining room, where we bought two fabulous copper chairs and teamed them up with less expensive ones.’
Lucy and Alex are still adding finishing touches, but now have everything pretty much as they want it. ‘We love living in this house and the location is perfect,’ says Lucy. ‘Sometimes we look at other houses, just out of curiosity, but we always come back to this place and realise it’s hard to beat. We’re just extremely thankful for the accidental drop of the door latch the first time we came to see it – it might have been a very different story otherwise.’
‘We wanted to take it back to basics and create a modern style’