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Turning their damp, dilapidated bungalow into a warm, open and completely accessible home has made this family from Edinburgh very happy

- Caroline Ednie

The transformative effect of good design is everywhere in evidence in a newly renovated semi-detached bungalow in Edinburgh. The improvements are not simply aesthetic – although the reimagined plan by Chambers McMillan Architects has certainly opened up the interior to space, light and views; the property, designed with the clients’ daughter very much in mind, is a blueprint for adapted houses of the future.

The project began a few years ago, when the clients, Pam and Walter Anderson, were on the lookout for somewhere more appropriate to call home. They were living in a top-floor flat with their daughter Eilidh, who has a rare condition that limits her mobility, and their son Archie. The stairs and the lack of parking facilities were making life difficult. “We knew we had to find somewhere that was all on one level so we could move Eilidh more easily,” explains Walter. “But most of the properties we viewed would have had to be excavated in order to make them flat. Then this house came up. It ticked our boxes, because major landscaping wouldn’t be required. But it was derelict and the damp report was horrendous.”

He and Pam began looking for an architect who could not only address the existing problems but also envisage an accessible home that would work for the whole family. They soon came across Chambers McMillan Architects, and were impressed by the adapted houses the practice had previously designed, including the partners’ own home, Ramp House, in Portobello. The practice devised three options for the Andersons, two of which involved converting the attic space. In the end, however, the couple chose the final plan, which was arranged over the ground level.