The Open House, Victorian Semi
The previous owners had knocked the ground floor through. What they hadn't done was decide what it was for.
A living room and a kitchen, sharing the same awkward white box. Sit down and you'd find yourself next to a row of cabinets. The space didn't reflect how a family of four actually moves through a home — the relationship between the front door, the kitchen, the dining table and the sofa was all wrong.
Becky runs a games animation studio. Adam writes for a living. Both needed a home that worked as hard as they did.
We moved the kitchen and dining toward the front of the house, closer to the daily rhythm of school runs and shopping bags. Rather than walls, we used the ceiling itself — subtle shifts in the plane that separate the space without dividing it.
The cabinetry sank into the walls so the joinery never crowded the room. Everyday clutter — blenders, toasters, the stuff that accumulates — disappeared behind fold-away doors.
The result is a ground floor that finally makes sense. Distinct without being divided. Working with family life instead of against it.