A CLEAR Winner

WHEN MARINA AND TIM CALLAND RENOVATED THEIR PERIOD FAMILY HOME, THEY DID SO WITH A SUCCESSFUL BLEND OF OLD AND NEW

- CARRIE MITCHELL 

Marina and Tim had lived in their home for 11 years before they started renovating in 2021. They had always planned to make changes but when they first moved in, they had a two-year-old plus a baby on the way, so the timing wasn’t right. ‘We had been looking for a house which would work for us for a while,’ explains Marina. ‘This one had the basics, but we wanted to wait for the kids to grow a little before starting.’

But when they got around to sorting their finances and engaging an architect, lockdown happened and the building work had to be put on hold.

FINDING A VISION

The couple’s plan was to create a larger kitchen-diner by incorporating the space taken up by the old conservatory. They also wanted to have an extra bedroom plus a new family bathroom, and to redo the leaky loft conversion to create an impressive main bedroom suite.

‘In all honesty, Tim and I are not very good at visualising what we want in a home,’ says Marina. ‘But we do know what we don’t like. We were lucky to find architect Dan Gibbons of APE Architecture & Design (ape-ad.co.uk) who went above and beyond for us.’

Dan started by asking the couple questions which forced them to think more clearly about how their home should look and feel. ‘If you’d asked me years ago how I imagined our style, I think it would have been quite traditional,’ says Marina. ‘But we were surprised to be so drawn to modern designs. In particular, we wanted something a little different for our conservatory, with contemporary windows and skylights.’

MAKING MOVES