CELEBRATING ELEGANCE

Emma and Simon Jamieson have proved you can repurpose rooms to make a period home more family-friendly, while reinstating character features

- KAREN WILSON

With three young sons, Emma and Simon Jamieson wanted their Victorian home in Lancashire to flow better for family life while ensuring the period character shone through. We'd just finished renovating our 1930s semi when Si spotted this house on RightMove on a road we'd always loved,' Emma says. Everything about it the symmetry, the long driveway, the period feel, the big garden-was tick, tick, tick. Our parents tried to deter us, calling it a money pit, but we'd fallen for it.'

Emma and Simon tried to convince themselves the work was mostly cosmetic but soon had to admit there was a lot more to do than removing the red carpet from the hall, stairs, landing and bathroom. In January 2018, they moved in and made a rough plan of works to be tackled, which included new central heating, windows, roof repairs and electrics. 'We had a full renovation on our hands and, in the end, every room was taken back to brick, starting on the first floor, Emma explains.

A fifth bedroom and family bathroom became an en suite and dressing room for the couple's bedroom, and they turned an en suite off the younger boys' bedroom into the main family bathroom by moving the door. At the end of 2019 the old kitchen was turned into a utility room and the large room next door dubbed 'the ballroom'- became a kitchen-diner. The previous owners had it as a TV room so it was wasted space.