It’s a rare phenomenon to find an attractive house that’s also a fixer-upper in certain neighborhoods of London these days, when the vast majority of houses come with kitchens already extended and lofts converted. So it was quite a discovery for Laura Stephens’ clients to find a distinguished Victorian villa in this state, and to have the freedom to transform it into a dream house.
Overlooking one of south-west London’s leafy commons, the three-storey house had potential by the bucketload, but none of it had been fulfilled by the previous owners. ‘It was very faded,’ recalls Laura. ‘There were lots of lovely original features there, but it was entirely unloved. The kitchen was tiny, there were no en suite bathrooms, and the garden was massively overgrown. There wasn’t even any central heating, so our site meetings were so, so freezing.’
