Our Property Renovation Journey: Part Four

21 Jul

Written By LBM

Following on my last post about the renovation of our Victorian Terraced house in Battersea, I wanted to share the next instalment on our Property Renovation Journey.

The journey started a few months before we found the property. We got married in November 2012 and we purchased this project in the summer of 2013. I wasn’t at all familiar with Tooting and Streatham before then; I had lived for all my 20s in Fulham and had only moved south of the river to Battersea after I met Patrick. It was my wedding dress that led us to this house!

Laura Butler-Madden's Property Renovation Journey: Part 4

I needed to get it cleaned post wedding before storing it away and Temperley recommended a family business in Tooting as the best place to take it. After a few months’ I finally got around to going. I hopped in the car one sunny, Spring morning and headed via Streatham to the dry cleaners. I had no idea until then how leafy and pretty Streatham was - on my way back decided to take a detour and explore a bit more.

I was so impressed by what I saw – wide leafy streets, big gardens and literally just the other side of Balham from Battersea, yet the prices were so much lower. Patrick and I went back a few days later to speak to estate agents and quite quickly honed in on this opportunity. It had been derelict for a few years, after the previous owners had been taken into care and then sadly passed away.

The gardens front and back were totally overgrown and inside it was damp, cold and looked a real mess, as various squatters had moved in over the years (lots of before images below and this was after a huge clean up!). It felt like a very sad place and didn’t have the charm of being Victorian or Georgian – it was a 1930s semi-detached house without any pretty features left, but we could see that the space and layout (once extended and updated) could be great and so we set about trying to buy it.

It needed a full renovation – new windows, plumbing, roof, electrics and flooring throughout as well as total decoration. We also wanted to extend to create a large open plan kitchen, dining, family room, as well as convert the loft into a lovely master suite and luckily could do both under permitted development.

It was such a challenging project, but so rewarding as well. We worked with our same team (who by now were starting to feel more like family!) and we completed the project in eight months. We had planned to renovate and sell straight away, but as the project progressed, we started to fall more and more in love with the house and the location too.

You can see all the before and during images of it below – as you can see it was quite a dramatic change! I could talk for hours about all the details of the works and designs etc, but I'm sure you wouldn't want to read pages and pages - do email me with any questions though!

Have a lovely weekend and I look forward to sharing part 5 of our renovation journey with you soon.

Laura x

Before pictures: