UK Edition
Sunken sofa 'pit' and a secret cellar: Inside the £1 million transformation of a 'playful' London home
The idea of having fun with your home is one that Georgia Aldridge grew up with.
As a child, she and her sister would dress up in lavish gowns and descend the “fabulous sweeping wooden staircase” in their Georgian home in Richmond, south-west London, which was used to film the television series Poirot.
As a teenager, Aldridge would help out with her mother Anna Darby’s film set business, Lavish Locations.
“She used to send me off to photograph incredible houses – I remember one in east London with a glass staircase and a glass-sided pool. It taught me that you really can be playful with your house,” says Aldridge, 43, a former BBC news producer who turned property developer when she had her children, Florence, now seven, and Atticus, five.
So it’s only to be expected that while her current Georgian family home in Hammersmith Grove looks, from the outside, like many others on this long west London street of large stucco-fronted houses, some surprises await behind its bright yellow front door.
Aldridge and her husband Michael, 42, who runs a Kenya-based construction company, have just spent nearly £1 million transforming the house they bought four years ago for £3.9 million. What began as a renovation project to do up and sell on morphed mid-renovation into their long-term family home.
“We realised we wouldn’t find another opportunity like this, a huge house in need of improvement and the only one left in the street that hadn’t been extended at the back,” says Aldridge.
So she went to town with her imagination – and budget – adding 1,000 sq ft with a three-storey extension at the rear to create a 3,900 sq ft house with seven bedrooms, four reception rooms and three bathrooms.
The ground floor packs a punch as soon as you enter, with its 63ft-long open-plan living space running from the front reception room through the kitchen to the L-shaped reception/dining room that leads into the garden. “As a mum, I wanted to see my children, which is why we created a big, open space. Otherwise, people put playrooms in the basement that no one wants to use,” she says.
The décor exudes personality, with its mishmash of ornamental items from the likes of Lorfords Antiques and Carlton Davidson, pieces of custom-made furniture by Julian Chichester and the now rare sight of a wall of books for reading rather than design purposes.
The eye is instantly drawn, too, to the bold colours – in particular the vivid green gloss on the skirting boards, window frames and ceiling – a speciality of Gavin Houghton, the interior designer Aldridge recruited to bring drama to the house.
“The painters questioned our choice of colours, which were all slightly different variations of green, but the effect is grown-up with a bit of playfulness,” she says. “The glossy ceiling reflects everything at night and creates a wonderful sense of height.”
Houghton also came up with the idea for the “conversation pit” that provides the focal point in the L-shaped reception room. “He really knows how to push boundaries,” says Aldridge. “He’d never done one before though. Nor had the architect, structural engineer, upholsterer or I, so it was a steep learning curve.”
The 8ft-wide pit turned out to cost £20,000, more than anticipated – partly due to hitting a structural steel bar below ground that had to be identified and dug out.
“The architect thought the idea was bonkers, especially as the walls of the pit are curved, which made things harder,” says Aldridge.
“We also needed to get the lounging angle right. We wanted two people to be able to lie down comfortably. Michael is a details guy and he insisted on us spending hours sitting in the hole so that we got the right angle, height and leg space for the sofas – and a perfectly sized television alongside.”
Work took place over a freezing winter, too, during which the family camped out upstairs with a makeshift kitchen. “The sunken sofa area was still a pit at that point and when some water got in, it froze along with some poor little frogs. At least it proved it was watertight,” Aldridge says.
The finished result, however, is undeniably eye-catching. “The children build camps in it, and it’s a handy way to keep babies in one place.”
The kitchen, which cost about £50,000 excluding appliances, also steers clear of the muted, minimalist variety that adorns many new-build homes. It combines modern and rustic, including an island worktop made from salvaged wooden flooring found at Lassco, which specialises in reclamation and antiques.
Where Aldridge saved a bit on the kitchen furniture – “we did the old trick of making mid-range cupboards look high-end by using great paint and handles” – she splashed out on floor-to-ceiling Crittall doors between the dining room and garden.
That has had an overhaul, too, with a total re-landscaping that includes an AstroTurf section for the children at the back, a grass roof on the extension and a £20,000 spiral wine cellar by Lucy Willcox Garden Design beneath the decking, with space for up to 1,900 bottles.
Having blown their £1 million budget on transforming the ground floor and garden, the couple were taking a break from renovation with the aim of restarting on the upper floors this summer when the next U-turn came in their plans.
The family have decided to decamp to Nairobi, where Michael is mostly based, so they have put the house on the market for £5.75 million through Savills.
“It will break my heart to sell it,” says Aldridge. “We have all the plans for how we were going to renovate the entire house, including a library, double dressing room and music room, so hopefully the next owner will take inspiration from what we’ve done downstairs. There are no more structural changes to do, so it should cost about £250,000-£450,000 to complete.”
Some playful surprises await the next owner of 39 Hammersmith Grove. So, too, perhaps will the odd bottle of wine from their sub-garden cellar. “We can’t take it with us to Africa,” says Aldridge, “so we’re slowly trying to make our way through the remaining 100 bottles before we move.”