EAST WEST HOME IS BEST
A beautiful town house in Glasgow's West End
Instead of retiring to the country, Trish and Sandy Dalziel have bucked the trend and moved to the city and they’re loving every minute. ‘We had been living in Killearn for 42 years but were getting increasingly bored of the drive into Glasgow to visit the grandchildren,’ Trish recalled. ‘Sandy and I started looking around the West End and I marked a few places that I thought might be suitable. The problem is, when you live in the country you get used to space and open air, so it was quite a specific property we were looking for.’
However, when the couple discovered a late 19th-century, three-storey town house, they were smitten. ‘When I came across this one, the outlook was such that you wouldn’t realise you were in the West End,’ said Trish. ‘There were beautiful gardens opposite the front of the house and a substantial garden at the back. We viewed it in November 2015 and we picked up the keys in March 2016.’
Whilst the previous owner had updated the property, added a new roof and kept it well maintained, it wasn’t quite to Trish’s
“They wanted to give the house a contemporary feel but one that was in keeping with its original features such as the ornate cornicing
taste. ‘He was a man on his own and he’d looked after it, but I have my own style, and this wasn’t it. Aside from that, I couldn’t reach half of the cupboards in the kitchen!’
Work was required, and Trish was straight on the phone to interior designer Margot Paton at Chelsea McLaine for some help. ‘I’ve known Margot for a long time and she’s done a lot of work for us. I love working with her as we have similar tastes and we nearly always agree.’
Margot brought in her colleague Lorna Collins as lead designer on the project and between them they devised a scheme that incorporated everything the Dalziels wanted to keep, which was mainly a lot of furniture and light fittings. They also wanted to give the house a contemporary feel but one that was in keeping with its original features such as the ornate cornicing, panelling and stained glass.
The original layout of the house consisted of a drawing room, cloakroom, kitchen and dining room on the ground floor with bedrooms and bathrooms on the upper level, along with storage and an original town house kitchen on the garden level.
‘The plan was to start with the ground floor kitchen, but it escalated somewhat, and we decided to do some work on the storage area and the downstairs kitchen first. We renovated this and designed what I call my “back kitchen” with a big table and a traditional pulley. From the other rooms we created a gym, a shower room and the garden room. It was a small bedroom, but we fitted patio doors which open to the garden and we built a terrace outside.’
On the ground floor, glazed double doors have been installed between the kitchen and former dining room, which is now an informal sitting room. The drawing room has retained its traditional role and the cloakroom has been changed into a loo.
Upstairs, by creating some clever room swaps and renovations, they have created a master bedroom with a dressing room and en-suite which wouldn’t look out of place in a five-star hotel.
‘The en-suite was a bedroom and the family bathroom was made into the dressing room,’ she says. ‘These are now two rooms that you can’t access from the hallway but as it’s a listed building we had to retain the doors. I’ve taken the door handles off and the doors now look like wood panelling, so they
appear as part of the walls. I had wanted the en-suite to be the bedroom as I’d fallen in love with the bay window, but size-wise it just didn’t work.’
The second bathroom became a family shower room, which wasn’t without its challenges. ‘It hadn’t been touched for years and it wasn’t the easiest room to convert as I was adamant I didn’t want the toilet facing you when you opened the door. It took a lot of work, but we got there eventually.’ Once the structural work was completed, Margot, Lorna and Trish set about the redecoration.
‘I didn’t buy a lot of furniture, only a couple of sofas and the L-shaped setee for the sitting room. I’m not terribly fond of corner units but Margot convinced me it was the best thing for the room as two sofas wouldn’t work.
‘She was right, and I know because I tried to fit in two sofas. I think that was the only decision I struggled with.’
Trish admits that she’s no slave to a
“I chop and change things all the time. The drawing room is the only one that stays the same
designer label and she just likes what she likes. In the drawing room Zoffany Fresco Secco wallpaper adorns the walls, giving the room a classical ambience, whilst in the kitchen it’s a contemporary Casamance Turquoise wallpaper.
‘The wallpaper in the cloakroom WC was one of Margot’s ideas. It’s rather different but I don’t like to be the same as everyone else,’ laughs Trish.
‘I chop and change things all the time – ornaments, cushions, pictures. The drawing room is probably the only room that stays relatively the same. It’s more traditional and most of the furniture came from my parents.
‘I love what we’ve done here with Margot and Lorna’s help, and although this house is the same square footage as our previous home, we use all of it which we didn’t in our last house.
‘It was lovely when we’d only been in two weeks and the family came over and said “Mum, this feels like home”. Which, considering we’d been in the last house for 42 years, was nice to hear.’