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After a total reconfiguration, every room in Jane and Nicholas Parish’s villa is now a much-loved and much-used space

- Jacky Parker

With their children, Alexander, 20, and Marianne, 18, embarking on further education, lawyers Jane and Nicholas Parish decided it was time to overhaul their tired home. ‘We’d modernised the house when we bought it 23 years ago, but we’d done nothing since,’ says Jane. ‘We were in desperate need of storage and better access to the garden.’

Although generously sized with a basement and habitable attic floor, the layout was typical of an Edwardian house, with a warren of dark rooms that didn’t work for modern life. ‘We had a small table in the kitchen and a dining room we used for special occasions,’ says Jane. ‘We only used three of the five bedrooms – our daughter Marianne still had the smallest room.’

In addition, the family rarely enjoyed the garden, which was awkward to get to, being accessed through a corridor cluttered with bikes.