Swiss Watch

As the saying goes ‘small is beautiful’, or it can be in the right hands
his small but perfectly formed terrace house transformation is a little gem, beautifully detailed like a finely crafted ‘Swiss’ watch, and full of surprises.

Street side this modest Ealing 3 bed terraced home looks much the same as its neighbours. A step inside immediately brings you into a carefully curated gallery of beauty, designed to delight & enhance life. The sumptuous herringbone parquet floor draws the eye to an expanse of light from a minimal 6 metre long frameless glass kitchen/dining extension, book ended by two super-sized pivot doors. The sitting room features a hidden storage pod behind a bookcase that is used to store racing bikes and coats.

An oak framed pivot door frames the grand entrance to the kitchen, dining and garden areas, & engages precisely alongside the storage pod. Stepping down into the kitchen’s frameless glass extension seamlessly connects to a sun drenched English cloudscape that makes the pocket sized patio garden feel generous. A southern orientation required the use of high performance solar glass to guard against solar gains. But, what more in life does one need but to be luxuriously cocooned with a book in the cantilevered frameless glass bay on a lazy Sunday afternoon?

The stair was reconfigured for a more easy flow to the upstairs rooms, & eased with a minimal glass balustrade. The client’s didn’t expect us to cleverly squeeze a full sized bath into the confines of their skinny back wing, or to magic space out of nowhere in their back bedroom come study. Sustainable features include warm water under floor heating, high spec thermally broken structural glazing, LED low energy lighting.

This is a small but perfectly formed home that artfully creates the illusion of space through the skillful balance of generously scaled and beautifully detailed elements. It was selected to be shown in the prestigious London Open House Weekend.