Projects

The brief

Turn an unused basement area into an en-suite shower room to give a family with growing teenagers a much-needed extra bathroom and create a balcony.

The property

A three-storey terraced house. The first option was to convert the unused loft, but the ceiling height of the loft was insufficient and the first-floor ceiling could not be dropped. At the back, the house had access to two levels of the rear courtyard, but much of the basement level was taken up with an old WC and store, and the exterior space on the ground-floor level was limited.

The solution

Utilise the space taken up by the old WC by building a basement-level en-suite shower room and using its roof as a balcony.

This necessitated juggling the internal layout to accommodate the new-found space. The basement-level living room and the ground-floor master bedroom were swapped. The living room is now in a lighter and brighter location with better access to the front door. French doors inserted in the rear wall lead from the living room to the new balcony.

The master bedroom now has an en-suite shower room with natural light streaming through glass bricks and sun tubes. A utility room was squeezed in for good measure.

The result

No need for the client to move from the property they loved. Despite limited space, the feel and use of the house has been transformed by utilising the available space more effectively.