I'm letting our STYLE EVOLVE'

Renovating their semi-detached gave Chloe and Adam a blank canvas to create a family home that’s stylish and functional

- RICHARD WEBBER/LISA FAZZANI

This house ticked all the boxes,’ says Chloe, of the first time she and her husband Adam viewed the four-bedroom semi in east London.

‘We loved the large hallway and view of the garden as soon as you walked in, plus the house is in a quiet cul-de-sac, with off-street parking, good transport links to the center of town and two high streets for shopping nearby, and the back garden looks out on to open grassland. However, we knew it would require a fair bit of work and investment to get the layout and interior working exactly the way we wanted it.

Making plans

The idea was for us to move up the housing ladder ahead of starting a family. We wanted the next move to be for at least five to 10 years, so it needed to suit all our future plans. We weren’t averse to a project, either, having previously renovated our two-bed flat. Although we could see the potential of this house, we kept an open mind at first and still carried on looking at other properties, but our thoughts kept on returning to it… we just had to view it one more time. As soon as we walked in, both of us could imagine ourselves here, even though the layout and decor at the time weren’t right for us.

Reworking the layout