Time for Change

Andrew and Alana’s home renovation journey includes a recently completed open-plan kitchen extension which truly reflects their preferred interior style.

- Andrew and Alana

When they purchased this house in 2014, Andrew and Alana knew there was lots of work to be done to transform it into their dream family home. ‘We were moving from an apartment in South Belfast to this four bedroomed house which was originally built in 1938. It had been sitting on the market for six years before we purchased it. Working to a tight budget we had to do most of the work ourselves, only enlisting expert help when it came to our recent extension,’ explains Alana.

Andrew and Alana engaged the services of Marshall McCann Architects to come up with a suitable design that opened up the back of the house with a large, glazed extension. ‘We had our sights set on renovating and extending the back of the house from the moment we bought it, but with three children under the age of six and covid in the middle of it all, it took us longer than expected to get round to this,’ comments Alana, who was delighted to see the work start in March 2022.

With the extension, the couple were looking for that seamless indoor/outdoor connection. ‘We have a southwesterly facing garden which gets the sun from midday and then works its way around the back of the house throughout the day, so we wanted floor to ceiling windows to allow all of the natural sunlight to flood into this space.’

When it came to the design of the kitchen and wider open-plan area, Alana approached Helen Wright from Cohen & Co. ‘I had followed Helen on her Instagram account @insidenumbersixteen and always admired her style, so when she started Cohen & Co in 2021, I knew she would be the right person to design our kitchen design, as well as other areas of the house.’