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Timothy James InteriorsFAMILY HOME IN SURREY
The architectural remodelling, fitting out and decoration of a lovely semi-detached Edwardian house in Weybridge, Surrey.
We were approached by an ambitious couple who’d recently sold up and moved out of London in pursuit of a slower-paced life in Surrey. They had just bought this house and already had grand visions of transforming it into a spacious, classy family home.
Architecturally, the existing house needed a complete rethink. It had lots of poky rooms with a small galley kitchen, all connected by a narrow corridor – the typical layout of a semi-detached property of its era; dated and unsuitable for modern life.
MODERNIST INTERIOR ARCHITECTURE
Our plan was to remove all of the internal walls – to relocate the central stairwell and to extend out at the back to create one giant open-plan living space!
To maximise the impact of this on entering the house, we wanted to create an uninterrupted view from the front door, all the way to the end of the garden.
Working closely with the architect, structural engineer, LPA and Building Control, we produced the technical drawings required for planning and tendering and managed both of these stages of the project.
QUIRKY DESIGN FEATURES
At our clients’ request, we incorporated a contemporary wall mounted wood burning stove in the dining area of the house, with external flue and dedicated log store.
The staircase was an unusually simple design, with feature LED lighting, designed and built as a real labour of love (not forgetting the secret cloak room inside!)
The hallway cupboards were designed with asymmetrical niches painted in different colours, backlit with LED strips as a central feature of the house.
The side wall of the kitchen is broken up by three slot windows which create an architectural feel to the space.
Fänas ArchitectureSouthwest Colorado mountain home. Made of timber, log and stone. Large custom circular stair connecting all three floors. Rough-hewn wood flooring.
Lewis Alderson & Co.Double larder cupboard with drawers to the bottom. Bespoke hand-made cabinetry. Paint colours by Lewis Alderson
Aspen Design RoomCustom cabinets and timeless furnishings create this striking mountain modern kitchen. Stainless appliances with black accent details and modern lighting fixtures contrast with the distressed cabinet finish and wood flooring. Creating a space that is at once comfortable and modern.
China Furniture and ArtsAdorned with Chinese silk and surrounded by hand painted porcelain, this antique Chinese bed speaks of a tradition of luxury when it comes to Asian furniture. The hand carved bed frame and gold leaf floor screen create a grand focal point.
Janet Brooks DesignThe family room, including the kitchen and breakfast area, features stunning indirect lighting, a fire feature, stacked stone wall, art shelves and a comfortable place to relax and watch TV.
Photography: Mark Boisclair
Robeson DesignThe powder room has a beautiful sculptural mirror that complements the mercury glass hanging pendant lights. The chevron tiled backsplash adds visual interest while creating a focal wall.
FINNE ArchitectsArchitect Nils Finne has created a new, highly crafted modern kitchen in his own traditional Tudor home located in the Queen Anne neighborhood of Seattle. The kitchen design relies on the creation of a very simple continuous space that is occupied by intensely crafted cabinets, counters and fittings. Materials such as steel, walnut, limestone, textured Alaskan yellow cedar, and sea grass are used in juxtaposition, allowing each material to benefit from adjacent contrasts in texture and color.
The existing kitchen was enlarged slightly by removing a wall between the kitchen and pantry. A long, continuous east-west space was created, approximately 25-feet long, with glass doors at either end. The east end of the kitchen has two seating areas: an inviting window seat with soft cushions as well as a desk area with seating, a flat-screen computer, and generous shelving for cookbooks.
At the west end of the kitchen, an unusual “L”-shaped door opening has been made between the kitchen and the dining room, in order to provide a greater sense of openness between the two spaces. The ensuing challenge was how to invent a sliding pocket door that could be used to close off the two spaces when the occasion required some separation. The solution was a custom door with two panels, and series of large finger joints between the two panels allowing the door to become “L” shaped. The resulting door, called a “zipper door” by the local fabricator (Quantum Windows and Doors), can be pushed completely into a wall pocket, or slid out and then the finger joints allow the second panel to swing into the “L”-shape position.
In addition to the “L”-shaped zipper door, the renovation of architect Nils Finne’s own house presented other opportunity for experimentation. Custom CNC-routed cabinet doors in Alaskan Yellow Cedar were built without vertical stiles, in order to create a more continuous texture across the surface of the lower cabinets. LED lighting was installed with special aluminum reflectors behind the upper resin-panel cabinets. Two materials were used for the counters: Belgian Blue limestone and Black walnut. The limestone was used around the sink area and adjacent to the cook-top. Black walnut was used for the remaining counter areas, and an unusual “finger” joint was created between the two materials, allowing a visually intriguing interlocking pattern , emphasizing the hard, fossilized quality of the limestone and the rich, warm grain of the walnut both to emerge side-by-side. Behind the two counter materials, a continuous backsplash of custom glass mosaic provides visual continuity.
Laser-cut steel detailing appears in the flower-like steel bracket supporting hanging pendants over the window seat as well as in the delicate steel valence placed in front of shades over the glass doors at either end of the kitchen.
At each of the window areas, the cabinet wall becomes open shelving above and around the windows. The shelving becomes part of the window frame, allowing for generously deep window sills of almost 10”.
Sustainable design ideas were present from the beginning. The kitchen is heavily insulated and new windows bring copious amounts of natural light. Green materials include resin panels, low VOC paints, sustainably harvested hardwoods, LED lighting, and glass mosaic tiles. But above all, it is the fact of renovation itself that is inherently sustainable and captures all the embodied energy of the original 1920’s house, which has now been given a fresh life. The intense craftsmanship and detailing of the renovation speaks also to a very important sustainable principle: build it well and it will last for many, many years!
Overall, the kitchen brings a fresh new spirit to a home built in 1927. In fact, the kitchen initiates a conversation between the older, traditional home and the new modern space. Although there are no moldings or traditional details in the kitchen, the common language between the two time periods is based on richly textured materials and obsessive attention to detail and craft.
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