Keeping the original roof height created a challenge
The client wanted to create a two-bedroom apartment, with strong individual elements such as high ceilings (over 3 metres in the main room), and exposed brickwork feature walls in the main open-plan lounge kitchen and bedrooms.
The Streatham location lent itself to achieving a substantial improvement to the value of the home, not just monetarily, but by adding significant lifestyle improvement. By utilizing our unique design process, we maximized the existing roof by featuring its immense original roof height of 4m.
How to utilize the 50m3 permitted development allowance gaining the best use additional volume, while keeping the home aesthetically pleasing. The work to convert the house involved some major structural engineering with the installation of large cranked steels, as the roof was much higher than the average. The build maintained a hip detail to maximize the cubic meters’ allowance. The main volume was used by changing the detached side of the home, lifting the hipped roof to the gable wall.
The project was not fully defined prior to build as this property and the conversion was quite unique, and would require a team effort with our clients’ input at stages to gain the best potential and evolve the space together. Although this can escalate costs, our approach in most cases is to have the stairs installed as early in the process as possible, to allow the client access and bring input to the creation of their space.
How the loft conversion flows seamlessly to the new level is very important. The stairs in all our conversions match in size and detail as much as possible to the rest of the home, and with this conversion, maintaining the grandeur and impact of the stairs was no less important. Upon completion, it was a great accomplishment to see that the detail matched so precisely, it became difficult to imagine how the house had ever looked without the stairs.
Providing a large open-plan living space with a kitchenette and French doors facing the rear garden. Two very interesting bedrooms were created in the front of the new space with exposed timbers and a feature brick wall.
Overall the feature elements and the space and light made this conversion for a residential home quite spectacular, and the client was very happy with the final product.