The remark about installing a climbing wall in their living room was meant as a joke: “One of the friends my husband goes caving with came to help with the house renovation. When he saw the ceiling height he said: ‘You could have a climbing wall in there,’” explains Sigrid Princen. “Thomas and I said: ‘Yes. Let’s do it!’”
When the couple bought their home 16 years ago, they knew once they finished the renovation it wouldn’t remain a typical Flanders property. Built in the late 1920s, the house had a series of rooms that ran on from each other at the rear – common to Belgian properties constructed in that period. “We knocked those down and opened the space up with the timber extension,” says Sigrid. What’s peculiar to their home is that the extension has two floors with the mezzanine level housing a bedroom and a small library with a central area that is open and allows light to flow down.
