homesources - a renovated London house

Inspiration: A London house that combines the best of the old and new.

Jacquie Lund's team of contractors and professionals renovated this period house, situated in one of London's exclusive squares, over a period of eighteen months which included six months of planning and design. It is now a superb residence that mixes the best elements of traditional elegance with spectacular contemporary design in the newly-built atrium conservatory.

It's hard to believe now that the house was once a building site consisting of open floor joists and bare walls. The first problem to be overcome were the sagging upper floors, a common problem in older houses. This was solved by using acroprops, which were gradually screwed so that the floors were gently returned to their original levels. Then steel RSJs were put across the headers of every opening to support the floor at its new level. Another issue faced at the design stage was what to do with the rear extension that was formerly the ballroom but had declined into an unused area with a gloomy subterranean atmosphere. Jacquie's design team replaced it with a double-height atrium conservatory that provides a highly contemporary space behind this otherwise traditionally styled house.

The hall links with newly created openings the dining room, the kitchen and the top deck of the conservatory. The dining room has stretched fabric-lined walls and built-in cabinets with doors featuring traditional landscape paintings. The cabinets all have sliding drawers for ease of access, one of them with a pullout wine rack. A specialist paint finisher carried out the marbling on the cabinet tops and the wooden floors are from Campbell Marson with stenciling applied in a leaf pattern. This gem of a room also features a collection of portraits on the walls - these are not of the owner's family as one might expect but have been chosen for the character of their expressions. "When the owners have friends round for dinner and the conversation turns to the pictures, everyone selects their favourite - which can be quite revealing!" laughs Jacquie.

The kitchen with unusual wood block pattern cabinet doors inspired by the interior designer John Byrom's frequent visits to Thailand.

The airy kitchen is totally unique to the house and has specially designed cabinet doors with thin wood blocks applied to them in a pattern to create an unusual look. The worktops are in marble and the cooking appliances by Gaggenau, the fridge freezer is by SubZero and was obtained from The American Appliance Centre.

The kitchen opens onto the atrium, designed by Christian Stocker, with its teak deck walkway and mezzanine breakfast table area supported by steel pillars. A steel staircase with stretched wire railings leads down to the floor level. Here the walls are unusual, being of polished plaster with silver and gold dust mixed in, and in pride of place there is a games table commissioned from David Linley with a reversible baize tabletop and inner recess for storage. A feature of the atrium is the clock with a world map etched into the glass and three time zones on display, one for London, one for America where the owners' children were at school and one for France where they also have a house. On this lower floor in the main part of the house is the family TV room and the owner's study with his collection of antique lighting devices and 'treen' old wood and ironwork candleholders. The atrium opens onto a courtyard garden with ivy-clad walls and a small waterfall pouring into a pool.

The games table specially commissioned from David Linley.

The well-proportioned first floor drawing room has a pair of tall windows offering wonderful views of the private square's gardens. The room, decorated in sunny yellow tones, retains its English atmosphere but also has a Continental feel with French and Italian furniture. "We use a lot of yellow in London for its brightening properties" says Jacquie, always ready to pass on a tip from her long experience of working with interior designers.

This antique French armoire has a custom-made removable interior that carefully slots in so preserving the value of this antique piece.

The house's principal bedroom has a fresh pistachio coloured paint effect on the walls and pictures of antique urns. The wardrobes have interiors made to measure for the precise length of the owner's shirts, jackets and other items of clothing. The ensuite bathroom has an antique-style bath from CP Hart, Czech and Speake bath/shower mixer in nickel, marble worktops and archtop heated towel rails. Unusually the shower has Vitrolite panels, rather than tiling, which Jacquie says "being glass is difficult to install, but is brilliant for cleaning as you can just wipe it down."

Clearly taking on a project of this magnitude is not for the faint-hearted, but there were advantages in starting from scratch. "We literally had a blank canvas," says Jacquie, "so we were able to plan the house precisely to the individual needs of the owners."

She employed a team of eighteen professionals from architects to kitchen designers and, in addition to the building contractor, employed more than forty specialist subcontractors. As she also had to obtain six planning and building consents it was important that Jacquie was able to keep on top of the organisation. "You have to get all the pieces in place before embarking on a job like this" says Jacquie, "and you need to make sure that you carry out all the steps in their proper sequence or you could be in for time and cost over-runs."

The result is a home designed for luxurious modern living where the owners can enjoy traditional comfort and elegance in the period part of the house, complemented by the spectacular atrium for bright indoor/outdoor living.

Jacquie is available for consultation on similar renovations where she can draw on her project management and design team to meet each owner's individual needs. Contact her on 07976 412840 or jacquie.lund@virgin.net