…and here we’ve made it even easier by cherry-picking just some of the many clever ideas featured in our Houzz Tours over the past 12 or so months. In this edition of an occasional series, the focus is on Victorian homes, since the feedback we get is that a LOT of you live in one. Let us know your own ideas in the Comments section.
Scenario Architecture
Be radical when renovating
When two architects renovate their own home, the results are often inspiringly creative. That’s certainly the case with this Victorian terraced family home belonging to architects Maya Carni and Ran Ankory of Scenario Architecture. When reconfiguring the five-bedroom property, they created a unique and stunning ‘broken-plan’ layout.
Their chief aim was to create a connection between the front living rooms and the garden. “The two street-level front sitting rooms are a full floor above the lower-ground kitchen and garden,” explains Carni. “So we opened up the two rooms and lowered the back one by two steps.”
The downstairs retains unique and welcoming living spaces, and yet you can now see right out to the garden from the front of the house.
Learn more about the transformation and look around the rest of this interesting home
Honeybee Interiors and Joinery
When you can’t strip back to reveal character, add it in
Designer Sacha Berger of Honey Bee Interiors was responsible for making this four-bedroom terrace feel homelier – and the bathroom is a great example of just one of the ways she pulled it off.
When Berger came to the project, the house, she explains, “was decorated in a very minimalist, contemporary way and [the owners] wanted to put in more character.”
Here, rather than pulling plaster from a wall to expose original brickwork, which can not only reduce insulation but also – depending on the position of the wall – fail to comply with Building Regulations, there’s a smart compromise. The wall behind the bath has been clad using brick slips, which work in a similar way to tiles and come in hundreds of finishes, including various aged designs.
Atmospheric uplighting really enhances the new feature, boosting character further.
See more of this home
User
Open up your hallway
The classic urban Victorian house features a narrow hallway with a staircase and doors to dining and living spaces off to one side. And it can work beautifully left just as it is. But for those after a more open feel to their entrance, this is an idea worth looking into.
Designer Sommer Pyne of House Curious, who also lives in this six-bedroom semi, chose to install factory-style metal doors in place of the solid wall and wooden door that would traditionally be in the same position. The doors open onto an airy hallway with a beautiful tiled floor. Light is now shared between the two areas, keeping both feeling bright and airy.
Explore the rest of the house
Run for the Hills
Turn a piece of vintage furniture into an island…
If you’re designing a sleek and contemporary kitchen for your Victorian home, and you have the space, an island is likely to feature.
However, for a space that makes a nod towards your home’s history, consider this idea by designer Anna Burles of Run For The Hills, who also lives in this two-bedroom, conservation-area, Victorian worker’s cottage with her family.
In the kitchen, an island unit with a zinc worktop is joined to a vintage plan chest. “We wanted the chest to face into the living and dining areas so the island wouldn’t feel like a kitchen unit,” says Burles.
See how the rest of this compact home has been transformed
Chris Snook
…or choose a table instead
Here, in an eat-in rather than open-plan kitchen, an antique pine table serves a similar purpose, but also works as a family-sized dining spot (as well as a handy extra work surface). The table has become the heart of this home and also leaves space for the original fireplace to remain, adding even more character.
The four-storey family semi in East Sussex belongs to blogger Michelle Kreussel, owner of The Fox in the Attic. Other parts of her house have benefited from this arrangement, too: the family now have a generously sized living room, as this space had previously housed the dining table.
Chris Snook
Also, rather than knocking through to create a large, open-plan area at the back of the house, common in Victorian properties like this, Kreussel has kept this room next to the kitchen as a cosy and distinct space, which the family use as a peaceful reading room.
Look around the rest of this house
The Pink House
Save money on a new kitchen
When homeowner Emily Murray of The Pink House blog did up her four-bedroom terraced house in Edinburgh, she spent her money wisely. Though the home underwent a big renovation, nothing was done for the sake of having something new.
The kitchen illustrates this perfectly – and stylishly. The existing kitchen units were in good shape, so after living with them for a while, Murray decided to just give the lower cupboards a makeover with a coat of black paint and gold hardware.
She also found that repainting the walls made a big difference to how the room felt, too. When she and her family moved in, the ground-floor rooms were all painted white. “I wasn’t sure if I should leave this initially,” she says, “but I finally took the plunge and painted the walls Manor House Gray. As soon as I’d painted them, the room just came alive. The colour highlighted the beautiful windows, and everything else in the room suddenly sang out.”
Check out the rest of this creatively put-together home
Raise the game
Sometimes, very simple ideas can have a dramatic impact. At first glance, this classic Victorian hallway, designed (along with the rest of the five-bedroom terrace house) by Beth Dadswell of Imperfect Interiors, looks relatively unaltered, save for the tasteful décor refresh, which included limewashing the floorboards.
In fact, however, a subtle but very effective architectural change has been made: the builders increased the height of the doorway leading through to the back section of the house and kitchen. The result? Well, you can see – see right into the garden, that is, from the front door, with no dramatic open-plan rejigging required. The entrance hall also benefits from more light, too.
Bet you’ll love the rest of this home, too
Which of these ideas do you like the most? Share your opinions – and your own clever Victorian house ideas – in the Comments section.
