We had all the downstairs doors widened to wheelchair width, so you enter the lounge through the old doorway but it’s a bit wider.

I’d say this room was relatively unchanged, but we ripped the fireplace out and put a studio fire in – so in addition to the lack of radiators (underfloor heating) it makes the room seem a bit wider.

We also took the front window out and installed large french windows at the front – out on to a new little south facing patio – the sunniest spot on the plot!

This is probably a good moment to mention the windows.  We replaced the whole lot in the end with Danish triple glazed windows. They are aluminium on the outside and wood on the inside. Very nice they are – and look very contemporary – no white horizontal lines anywhere!  All the upstairs windows are reversible so they can be cleaned from the inside.

I might also mention the interior doors. All widened downstairs and the pre-existing width upstairs. Gone are the horrid old mahogany panelled 1970s doors. These doors are solid oak with a beautiful weight and feel,  The handles are all from Karcher in Germany and bolt through the doors to each other, so no more “hanging off” looks!!  The handles are in stainless steel and polished stainless steel shiny bits.  They also have their own return springs which you would think was no big deal but on the double doors, where there are no latches, it is important that the handles feel the same as every other door. The carpenter said He’d “never seen anything like them”.  I was surprised too that it took over two weeks I think to hang all the doors – there are quite a lot of matching wardrobe doors in addition to the house doors. Over 30 I think in total. By the way, the wardrobe door handles match the kitchen handles….

Taken from the Hall entrance door, facing toward the back garden.

Taken from the back patio doorway

Studio fire