'We've blended SO MANY IDEAS!'

Inspired by a range of eclectic styles, Russell and Paul have remodelled their 1930s semi from a bland rental to a vibrant and fun forever home

- KAREN WILSON

After living in London for 25 years, we were able to sell our two-bed Victorian flat in Beckenham and buy a 1930s home in Leeds that was ripe for an overhaul,' says Russell.

'We wanted a different pace of life and you certainly get more for your money up north. My husband, Paul, is from East Yorkshire and I went to Bretton Hall, an arts college near Wakefield, so we both knew Leeds pretty well.

We've always loved the style of 1930s houses, so after the first lockdown we booked viewings for six properties in the hope of finding a blank canvas to renovate. This semi-detached property in the suburb of Gledhow was the first one we looked at and had been on the market for a year.

The proportions were a bit challenging as the kitchen was tiny and it had a massive sloping garden with two huge sycamore trees making it very shaded.

Families had obviously been put off by the kitchen and unusable garden but we could see beyond that and fell in love with the street.

Building the dream

Although we could have been mortgage-free and gradually done up the house over 10 years, as we're both still working we chose to continue with a mortgage and use the equity from our flat to get everything done how we wanted.

Originally, we'd envisaged having a wraparound extension which would have given us slightly more space, but the planning rules changed so we scaled it back to fall under permitted development. We were able to extend by three metres at the rear, which gave us a large kitchen-diner and seating area without losing too much of the garden.

Then a side extension was built for the utility and cloakroom. It worked out better in the end as the dead space between the rear and side extension has been used for a barbecue area with pizza oven.