With the current economic climate reducing the option of moving house, many people are turning their attention to the state of their present house to make improvements.

We would like to offer you an example of what is possible by illustrating a project to redesign and refit a substandard bathroom and kitchen to match the rest of a spacious and well appointed flat in a listed building.

• Location: Grade 2 Listed Terraced House in Brighton
• Aims: Upgrade Kitchen & Bathroom to relate to rest of flat
• Existing: Poor use of space, poor finishes
  Poor & mismatched fittings
• Strategy: Strip out all fixtures, fittings and
  Prepare all surfaces
  New partition and door
  New floor to Bathroom
  Sand and seal Kitchen floorboards
  Refit Kitchen & Bathroom
  Replace lighting and electrics
  Renew plumbing
  Redecorate

When the client purchased a ground floor flat in a Grade 2 listed building he was aware that the kitchen and bathroom did not match the principal rooms which are spacious and of good height. He intended from the outset to upgrade the kitchen and bathroom but was not sure how to go about this.

The first impression of the existing rooms was of a series of small spaces with a total of 5 doors, which resulted in tight and poor use of what space was available. The detailed points are shown on the “Before” layout.

The key to the development was to remove the separate cloakroom and incorporate the toilet with the bathroom, to remove all the internal partitions and to redistribute the space between the kitchen and bathroom. This allowed the kitchen units to be set each side of a central area for the full length of the room with the bathroom door now in the centre of the dividing wall. The new bathroom incorporates the corridor and stores from the original layout and with the addition of a shower which is much more spacious with more generous fittings than the original. The existing low ceiling was removed and the spaces opened up to the underside of the roof slope.

Finally the services were all renewed, new floor finished incorporated and all surfaces tidied up and redecorated to create a modern and usable addition to compliment the quality of the principal rooms.

Haydn Bennett Chartered Architect

Before:

Enjoy the Space:

• Architect: Haydn Bennett Chartered Architect