This five-bedroom Edwardian house in southwest London has not had your standard architectural refit. It’s not been given a side return infill, nor has a glass box been added onto the back.
But then McLaren Excell is not your standard residential architectural firm — instead, it makes single-storey country farmhouses out of golden ironstone or fortress-like city homes clad in rich, grey Danish Petersen bricks. And this modern home is equally surprising.
With inspiration taken from lattice designs that were popular when the house was built in the Edwardian era, the weathered-steel façade has been given the look of ageing bronze.
"The starting point was restoration," says Rob Excell, one of McLaren Excell's co-founders. "The house hadn’t been loved for 30 years and was falling apart."
He found an old postcard of the back of the house in its heyday, showing a balustrade area, plus a latticed balcony and terrace.
"The arched motif was inspired by the original Edwardian windows and became a key reference in shaping the refined metal façade."
"The skylight marks the join between the original house and extension," says architect Rob Excell of this living room.
The architects set about creating a weathered steel façade, giving it the look of ageing bronze, the arched detailing nodding to the period of the home, while managing to be totally contemporary.
"With a generous plot and views over the river, the rear of the house needed little more than a simple curtain of glass and metal to connect indoors and out," says Rob.
"The concept for the copper counter was to have a living finish that complemented the external bronzed façade," says Rob.
A wooden tray holding a simple fruit bowl is the perfect finishing touch to a minimalist kitchen countertop — this one from H&M is a steal.
Rob used the same Dinesen Douglas fir seen elsewhere in the house for a bespoke dining table, bringing the warmth of the timber to this convivial space.
Internally, the whole house is practically seamless, awash with Dinesen Douglas fir planks that make up much of the flooring, the custom shelving, the staircase, and even the dining table.
There is a poured concrete floor in the back section of the home, stretching from the kitchen all the way out of the glass doors and into a new terrace, polished back to the aggregate so it takes on the gleam of terrazzo and eliminates the need for tiles that might cause visual breaks.
"It’s a brilliant material to use from an underfloor heating point of view," says Rob. "It allows for a very consistent temperature for heating, while also being cool to walk on in the summer."
A vase of dreams to make for the perfect statement piece in this space.
Create your own quiet homework corner with this pedestal table.
Hiding a media room and leading up to the kids’ play areas above, this contemporary staircase idea is also made of Douglas fir.
Ultimately, a monastic sense of serenity was the brief for this space, using as few changes in material as possible and adding as much light as they could.
"We don’t like there to be any sort of blending between the existing and new parts of a home," says Rob, and it’s true that the same palette and materials run throughout.
"Taking the tiles all the way to the ceiling is another way to stop any sense of visual break," says Rob of the clean white bathroom.
A set of simple brass taps is the accent feature doing the talking in this white bathroom — we love these from Lusso Stone.
"We chose this color because it was fairly muted, so wouldn’t jar with the rest of the house but was enough of a change that it created a sense of difference when you stepped into the space," Rob says of the modern bedroom.
Being a family home, it also had to work for the owners’ three sons, so the back section, while open, has a little corner, shrouded by walls on three sides, with a table for homework, which can easily be seen by anyone in the kitchen.
"There had to be a sense of togetherness," Rob says, of his open but zoned floor plan. "It had to not just be another open-plan space."