On the ground floor Donald would like me to introduce as much natural light into the dark, central spaces, while creating a good size utility room, cloakroom, and ground floor toilet and entrance hallway. On the first floor they would like more efficient bedrooms and a more interesting architectural spaces. Their budget is £60,000.

The Solution

I sketched around 12 different ways of arranging this house before going for this option. There are so many ways of arranging the spaces with advantages and disadvantages for each scheme. In order to get as much light into the centre of the deep plan and the make the central spaces as usable as possible I’ve decide to relocate the main staircase. By moving it to the centre of the plan with a large skylight in the roof over-head means that what was once the most boring and dark part of the home become the most spacious and exciting. The staircase becomes the main focus of the house and it is flooded with natural light coming from the new double height window to the side of the house as well as the large skylight above. I would suggest a very minimal open riser stair so the natural light can flow to the very depths of the plan. Moving the staircase to this new position means that you can create lots of much needed cloak storage and a bigger toilet on the ground floor. To minimise costs I want to avoid moving too many of the main plumbing and drainage runs so I have kept the utility room, toilets and bathrooms on both levels in a similar position, but made them more efficient and spacious.

The hallway and corridor have been redesigned to provide a direct route to the kitchen and dining rooms.

The living room becomes larger as we have absorbed what space was left over from the old reception room into the transformed living room with lots of built in storage.

The new utility room is access directly off the new kitchen and is much more efficient in its planning. Most of the old utility room was wasted circulation space.

I have removed the wall between the kitchen and dining room to make one large open plan kitchen/diner with a new breakfast bar.

I have decided that the new staircase actually becomes part of the new kitchen dining space, but if the owners wanted the staircase to be separate then I would move the door that divides the kitchen from the hallway to be alongside the utility room door. I would then install full height and full width glass to divide the staircase off from the dining area.

Upstairs the new staircase transforms the space and is flooded with natural light. The old ‘cranked’ corridor is removed and replaced with a simple straight corridor, which makes the plan work so much better.

Bedroom 5 at the front of the house and the new family bathroom are made much bigger due to the staircase being repositioned.

The compromise is that bedroom 3 in the centre of the plan is reduced to a small bedroom or study to make way for the new staircase.

Top Five Tips: How to set your budget

1. Firstly work out what you can actually afford without overstretching yourself. Don’t take on excessive debt to do your renovation work. It’s not worth it!
2. Speak to estate agents and work out the maximum value of similar types of homes that have been renovated in your area. There will be a maximum level that your home will be worth even after you have done the work so don’t over invest in your home otherwise you will be wasting your money.
3. When you have a sketch design scheme and basic specification of what you want to do to your home ask your architect or a local builder to come up with a provisional budget estimate. Some very early estimates will give you a reality check and you can then very quickly amend your designs to suit your budget.
4. With renovation projects I always set a 15% contingency to any budget. You will always come across problems so you must allow a contingency at the very beginning.
5. Don’t forget about VAT! I’m amazed at how many clients just don’t budget properly for VAT and remember it has gone back to 17.5% from January 2010. Unless you are substantially demolishing your existing home and rebuilding from scratch then you will be liable to pay VAT on all labour and materials. Please check with your local VAT office before starting work, as there are exceptions to this rule (but not many!).

If you are more ambitious and want to increase the amount of space in your home then you will be looking at adding an extension, conservatory or loft conversion. If you do this I suggest you consult a local architect. Architect’s have the creative skills to see opportunities that can make fantastic improvements to your home even on the lowest budget and if you go ahead and employ their services they will do so much for you.

An architect will produce design drawings to help you understand what your new home will look like, they will advise you on local planning policy, make the necessary planning and building control applications to your local council, they will advise you on building costs, help to recommend good local builders and they will also supervise all of the work on site to minimise any stress to you.

Yes, I’m an architect so this does sound like a sales pitch, but it’s a mistake to think that architects just draw pretty pictures. They are at the very heart of the building process and a good architect will be there for you every step of the way.

To find an approved local architect contact the Royal Institute of British Architects (www.architecture.com) or contact your local planning department who may be able to make recommendations.

It completely enlivens the atmosphere of the space into something beautiful, romantic, calming and serene. A fire is not only warm and comforting but it also provides a powerful focus to any room with its glowing, flickering light.

The fire I have installed in my new home is very modern and contemporary. It’s the Conmoto Balance Modular Stove System designed by Peter Maly (from Encompass Furniture www.encompassco.com). It’s a real fire for burning wood, or in my case in London, for burning smokeless fuel.

It is stunning and has transformed a simple room into a beautiful room and the amount of heat it gives is amazing. We haven’t turned on the heating in the ground floor since we moved in. There is also something about the smell and crackling sound of a real fire that makes it more ‘homely’ than a gas fire. Every home should have one!

But on a more cautious note it is around this time of year that we have more devastating house fires than any other time of year. Why? Well, we use our boiler systems more regularly and at a more intensive level during the winter so please make sure you have them maintained properly and serviced regularly by an approved heating engineer to ensure they are safe.

We also use more candles than any other time of year. They may seem harmless enough but a friend in Edinburgh lost most of his home in a matter of hours after he forgot to put out the beautiful festive candles on his dining room table. Fortunately no one was hurt.

Then there are the dangers of real, open fires. If you are lucky enough to have a real fire please get your chimney swept regularly and make sure the fire is properly extinguished with a fireguard in place before you leave it alone.

You’re probably thinking I’m one of those patronising property experts preaching basic stuff that to most of us is common sense.
Well tell that to my good friend Alex. A well-educated, sensible lad with a stunning thatched cottage nestled in the woods in Hampshire.
One year he forgot to get his chimney swept and came home just before Christmas to find his dream home completely up in flames.

The house and surrounding woodland was gone. If that weren’t enough to cope with when it came to making a claim to his insurance company he was told his policy was void, as he had failed to maintain the building properly in accordance with clauses in his policy documents.
You know, that small print jargon at the bottom of the page that none of us ever reads.
He didn’t get a single penny.
He lost his home, all of his personal belongings and he is financially ruined. I hope his tragic story acts as a reminder.

Vanessa Anderson, age 62, lives in a Edwardian terrace house in London that dates from 1910. Like many who live in such properties, Vanessa wants to open up the ground-floor space to create an open-plan layout, and add an extension. Her budget is £120,000.The Problem

The main problem with the original ground floor layout of many Edwardian homes is that there are too many individual, small rooms and often not enough space to meet the requirements of a 21st century home. As you come in through the front door and enter the hallway there is a small living room immediately to your right. The main feature in this space is the beautiful bay window at the front of the house. Alongside the living room, at the back of the house, is a formal dining room that opens onto the garden and next to the dining room is an incredibly small and dark kitchen. Like many Edwardian homes, off the kitchen, there is what architect’s call a service block; a small lean-to extension that contains most of the drainage for the house with a ground floor toilet and utility room.

Although for most of the time Vanessa lives alone, she is a very sociable character. As well as having 2 adult children who often come home to stay, she also has many friends who come to visit from overseas and can stay for up to 2 or 3 weeks at a time. Small, individual rooms do not suit such a sociable person who loves to entertain and have dinner parties.

The Brief

Vanessa’s design brief is to create as much additional space as possible by proposing a new extension onto the back of the building to have a large new kitchen and dining area. But, I feel it even more important to look at completely rearranging the existing layout to create a greater sense of space from the moment you walk into the front door. By removing internal walls and opening the space up you can make a small house seem much larger and it also helps if you can introduce more natural light. Another important part of the brief was to provide a study/work area on the ground floor as she worked from home. Although the budget of £120,000 is a substantial amount of money, this can soon disappear when you intend to make so many expensive structural changes, build a large extension and maintain high quality finishes throughout the new design (one of Vanessa’s requirements was to have an expensive, hand-made kitchen!). Therefore, it is critical that the plan is efficient. What I mean by an efficient plan is that it saves money if all of the ‘service rooms’ (those that need a lot of water, electrics and drainage such as kitchens, bathrooms, toilets and utility rooms) are located closely together.

The Solution

The solution is to build the extension and create an open plan space from the front to the back of the house. But making a successful open-plan space work properly takes a lot more than just knocking down a few walls. I spend an enormous amount of time designing each ‘space’ (i.e. the study, the kitchen, the living room), as a ‘zone’ and making sure that those zones are practical, functional and link well together with the adjacent ‘zone’ to create a coherent layout. In Vanessa’s case there are 7 zones on the ground floor.

1. The Entrance Hall

This is no longer an enclosed space as it opens up onto the living areas. It important in the scheme that as soon as you open the front door you get a view all the way through the house and out to the garden at the rear.

2. The Private Study

A beautiful space as the desk position sits in the existing bay window. We provided shutters to the lower half of the bay window for privacy from the street. The study can be closed off from the adjacent living spaces by pulling out sliding/folding doors, but can be left open for most of the time when Vanessa is working home alone.

3. The Formal Lounge Area

The focus of this area is the new open fire. This is a place where Vanessa can sit with friends and talk. Formal sofas and chairs with lamps either side on small tables are arranged around the hearth. Power to these lamps had to be provided using floor sockets to avoid wires having to run across the floor from wall sockets.

4. The Informal Lounge Area

The focus of this area is the plasma TV. Lounge chairs and footstools are used in this area, rather than sofas, to create a more informal feel.

5. The new Breakfast + Dining Area

The new, single-storey extension provides a much bigger dining area that opens directly out onto the garden. The large glass doors provide so much more natural light and it was important that this area faced east to make the most of the morning sunrise at breakfast time.

6. The Kitchen Area

The new kitchen is alongside the dining area and has a glass roof over the top (dotted on the plan) to provide a huge amount of natural top-light. A large corner-glass window gives views from the kitchen onto the garden.

7. Utility Room and Toilet

To make the plan incredibly efficient, I have designed the utility room and toilet alongside the kitchen. All of the service runs for water, electric and drainage are in the same area of the plan. All of the internal drainage collects at one single point and exits via the side passageway.

Under floor heating was used throughout the entire space, which means all wall space could be used for important integrated storage and picture hanging rather than being wasted using wall-mount radiators.
The combination of a new heating system, an energy efficient boiler, new double-glazed sliding sash windows and the fact we dry-lined and insulated every single internal wall, floor and the extension roof means this is one of the most energy efficient Edwardian homes in London, while the new internal spaces work like a dream!